Stephen Crane's War Is Kind

”War is kind” is poem written by Stephen Crane and is about war and its aftermath. Stephen Crane perfectly summarizes war and those affected directly and indirectly in five stanza’s, the message of the poem is directed more towards the loved ones of the soldiers who died on the battlefield. Stephen Crane used blank verse poetry and is well suited for the subject of war because it doesn’t have the harmonious patterns of rhyme or rhythm. The second and fourth stanzas characterize a change in the location. While the first, third, and fifth stanzas focus more on the loved ones of dead soldiers, the second and third and stanzas depict scenes of the battlefield in intense detail. The phrase “Do not weep and War is kind.” Appears in every other stanza this repetition of two lines helps to connect the emotional …show more content…
The first, third and fifth stanza are the outside view, these three stanzas are consoling those effected by a death in war. The speaker pleads to them to not be sad in saying: “Do not weep maiden for war is kind”. (Crane, 1.) “Do not weep babe for war is kind”. (Crane, 12.) Although the speaker is trying to console the people who lost their loved ones he does not do a very good job. He says things like which is like saying war isn’t that bad, but then he says things like, “your father tumbles in the yellow trenches raged at his breast gulped and died”(3,2.) this meaning that the child’s father died in the trenches from mustard gas. The stereotypical view of someone consoling another who lost a loved one in war is what the poem is depicting in which they describe how glorious they were at the time of their death. But shows that if you were honest, they could not say that war is as glorious or kind as they have in the stanzas. The second and fourth stanza provide the reader with the gritty truth of war. The asides portray the true meaning in which war is