The Use Of Irony In Stephen Crane's War Is Kind

Today war is considered stupendous, and the only option to some. Many disagree to such opinions. War only ends with one result, death. War can not only tear a family apart, but divide a country as a whole. Many families lose loved ones each year to war. Due to not many speaking out on such topic, authors use their works to screech for them. Many using experiences and storytelling, most use literary devices. Writers use imagery, irony, and structure to protest war. Consequently, authors use irony as a literary device to make readers think about something or to emphasize a point in the story. For instance, in Stephen Crane’s “War is kind” irony is his key literary device. For example, in the poem he writes “Because your father tumbles in the yellow trenches, Raged at his breast, gulped and died, Do not weep. War is kind (14-16), to show that not only can you use your life in war, but how war is not kind. A man losing his life in this way is not an act of kindness. War is not kind to …show more content…
Writers use imagery to express a thought more theatrically. Specifically, in “War is kind” Crane describes a “field where a thousand corpses lie” (11) to display a battleground full of lifeless bodies in the reader’s mind. He uses this imagery to show not only the reader, but to silently explain the result of war. Death is the only prize when playing the game of war. Another example of this literary device is in the poem “Dulce et Decorum Est”. Owen descriptively explains having to watch his fellow soldier die when he writes “Behind the that we flung him in, and watch the white writhing in his face” (18-19). He uses imagery to describe personal and real events that happen on the battlefield. Both of the authors include imagery in their work to enhance their point of it all. On the whole, the authors used imagery to fabricate the devil’s playground, the war