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War is kind by stephen crane poem analysis
War is kind stephen crane analysis
War is kind stephen crane analysis
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The poem “War is Kind” by Stephen Crane gives light to the women who are affected by the men that are in the military. By stating “war is kind” is really the exact opposite because war is not kind, it is gruesome, horrific, and deadly. How it shows irony by insinuating that war is a pleasant thing but then talking death and pain. The language brings attention and glorifies the symbolism behind war. It gives imagery by giving you a picture of the actions that are being brought out in each stanza. The bad that happens in war and the loss that it brings. That no one truly wins this war. There will always be death and loss at every corner no matter who is on the winning side. Mothers lose sons, wives lose husbands, daughters lose fathers, and how …show more content…
How in the first stanza “the affrighted steed stood alone” entails how they were people the ones who were afraid were weeded out from the ones who stood up to fight. Having showed the poems dark nature by describing how the father dies in the third stanza stating how “your father tumbled in the yellow trenches, raged at his breast, gulped and died. Raged at his chest meaning that he was trying to hold his breath but couldn’t hold on any longer. Then when he finally inhaled the gas he perished. It is in a very morose setting. People dying left and right only bring a field of corpses. By having the word drill in their has a bigger impact than just having the word fight. In stanza two “hoarse, booming drums of the regiment”. The word hoarse brings impact to the poem becoming more aggressive with sound. Hoarse meaning sounding rough or harsh. That gives the idea that the drums are being hit real hard like it is about to break. With the word regiment however it displays the militia being patriotic. Having them beat their drums rapidly as they are about to walk into war. The concept has brought a patriotic display while being shown cruel depths that lie within it. Where it comes to the last stanza how it the sincere mother broken into to due to her son dying in the war. “Mother whose heart hung humble as a button, on the bright splendid shroud of your son”. The alliteration that was used I these two lines is a great literary device that helps show how sincere of the action that is taking place. In those lines there is also alliteration as with the repetitiveness of the letter s and h. The mother is hanging on her last leg and can’t deal with the pain anymore. How it said “shroud” which is a cloth that is wrapped around a dead person for a burial gives the sense that this is a funeral. The mother is seeing her son getting buried is very difficult and trying her best to keep
The poem appears to be torrent of abuse and vulgarity; however, it is ultimately an instructional guideline on how to survive the foreign conflict. The drill sergeants stern tone is instantly viewed when the audience is introduced to his monologue mid sentence, “And when I say eyes right I want to hear/ those eyeballs click and the gentle pitter-patter/ of falling dandruff”. Beginning mid sentence effectively allows the audience to feel as if they have just walked in on the intimidating speech instantly grabbing the audience’s attention. The sergeant displays his authoritative nature through the hyperbole of how quick he wants his soldiers to pay attention. The silence immediately required to follow, expressed through the silent-like onomatopoeia ‘pitter patter’, allows the audience to anticipate extremely important information to follow. This fast paced
This is the poem that Jim Northrup wrote about war. I am going to Explicate the poem and
The poet Wilfred Owen was one of many poets who were against war. He reflected this idea of anti-war in his poems, one of his poems called “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, mirrors most aspects of war all put together in this short still deep poem. An example of that would be when the speaker stated,” What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”(1) The speaker asks is there any sound that marks our soldier’s death other than the sounds of church bell’s which are mostly rung to represent somebody’s absence? Clearly, the speaker sets anger as the tone of the poem through this question to show that soldier’s death is unremarkable.. The speaker compares the soldiers to a “cattle” which illustrates that soldiers are treated more like animals with no feelings and also shows how they are killed indiscriminately in war. Finally the line ironically contains an iambic pentameter which is a natural rhythm for such dark, grim, dull subject. The two novels, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, and All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, both present a similar idea of how soldiers are killed out there in the front comprehensively and the dehumanization of war towards its soldiers. The first novel is set during the Civil War, and it focuses on the psychological aspects of one soldier named Henry Fleming and how his naive thoughts about war constantly change through the course of the novel. The second novel presents the life of a soldier named Paul Baumer and his friends who were faced with the terribleness of war and how severely it affected their lives. The Red badge of Courage and All Quiet on The Western Front are similar in the way of how the main characters develop through the novel to change from naïve and innocent men ...
In Crane’s poem, “War is Kind” he writes about how war is “kind,” though in reality, war it isn’t. War is never kind. The speaker is telling a maiden not to cry for her dead lover. He tells child to not cry over his dead father, and for a mother not to cry over her her dead son. Crane uses lots of irony in this poem. Which leaves the reader thinking the speaker is cold hearted. The speaker in Crane’s poem is sarcastic about war and is sardonic in his perspectives considering war. Although underneath the sarcasm and coldness, the speaker could be feeling anguish, and sadness. That person might be feeling bitter because he may have experienced war first hand or may have lost a loved on in war.
...ld rhythm to the poem while ignoring the fact that soldiers might not be the most eager to be fighting.
War and its ramifications for those who are unfortunately entangled in it, is an issue that has fueled both political discussion and literary exploration throughout the previous century. Underived, authentic accounts of the experience and effects of war, from those who have served in it, can be especially enlightening for the majority of society who have had the fortune of not being intimately familiar with war. Through the examination of poems and stories written by soldiers, who were inspired by their involvement in conflict, one can obtain a greater understanding of this gruesome aspect of life, without having to directly experience it. Similarly, soldier turned poet, Bruce Weigl, has contributed his perspective on war through his literary
Editha by William Dean Howells is clearly a political story about realism and war. The story revolves around a young woman, Editha, who pushes her fiancé to go to war and ends up losing him. I “abhorred” the plot and thought the story was quite boring. I wanted more of George’s perspective, and less of his manipulative, evil, fiancé. I also thought the time frame could have been depicted better, it’s unclear to me how much time actually went by for George’s absence, or how long Editha grieved for. Although not my favorite story, the ironic tragedy is conveniently composed of symbolism and pathos throughout the short story.
The poem comprises three stanzas which are patterned in two halves; the rule of three is ingeniously used throughout the poem to create tension and show the progression of the soldiers’ lives. There is a variety of rhyming schemes used – possibly Duffy considered using caesural rhyme, internal rhyme and irregular rhyme to better address the elegiac reality. The rhythm is very powerful and shows Duffy’s technical adroitness. It is slightly disconcerting, and adds to the other worldly ambience of the poem. Duffy uses a powerful comparative in each stanza to exemplify the monstrosity and extent of war, which is much worse than we imagine; it develops throughout each stanza, starting with a syntactical ‘No; worse.’ to ‘worse by far’ and ending on ‘much worse’. Similarly, the verbs used to describe the soldier’s shadow as he falls shows the reader the journey of the shadow, as if it’s the trajectory of soldiers’ lives. At first, the shadow is as an act...
This opening paragraph is a simple, poetic version of the main theme behind All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. The point of the story is to show that war is not romantic, glorious, or fantastic. In fact, those words could not be further from the truth. War is a disgusting competition of human instinct, fought by the wrong people. It brings out the worst in everyone; it destroys their compassion, honesty, and ideals. The beginning chapters of All Quiet on the Western Front are devoted to showing that warfare hardens soldiers against true emotions. Their main priority is survival, second is comfort, followed by gain.
War forces young soldiers to grow up quickly. In Stephen Crane’s Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage, Henry Fleming is no exception. He is faced with the hard reality of war and this forces him to readjust his romantic beliefs about war. Through the novel, the reader can trace the growth and development of Henry through these four stages: (1) romanticizing war and the heroic role each soldier plays, (2) facing the realities of war, (3) lying to himself to maintain his self-importance, and (4) realistic awareness of his abilities and place in life. Through Henry’s experiences in his path to self-discovery, he is strongly affected by events that help shape his ideology of war, death, courage, and manhood. The romantic ideologies will be replaced with a more realistic representation.
The speaker in "War is Kind" is an officer who grapples with his own conscience in an internal monologue. He is struggling with his feelings of guilt over leading younger soldiers into battle and his military responsibility to cover up the truth. One way of interpreting this poem is to consider that the officer is attending a traditional military funeral for one of his soldiers. This can be seen in the way the stanzas are set up in the poem. In the first, third, and fifth stanzas, the speaker appears to be consoling the weeping loved ones of a soldier who died in the war. This would normally be the job of an officer who leads a regiment into battle. Consoling the family members is a powerful tool for conveying the reality of war. Addressing loved ones of a deceased soldier illustrates the loss and suffering to be dealt with by those left behind. He speaks to a "maiden" (1), a "babe" (12), and a "mother" (23), thereby, conveying one of the most significant truths about wa...
...and the way that the opposing sides think of each other is awful. The fact that one side is praying for disaster to come on their enemies isn’t showing God’s love and at the end of the poem it says, “We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love.” It is out of love for their own soldiers but not for the soldiers on the other side. This poem shows the real aspects of people’s feelings about war. Many people don’t want their own side to be crushed, but they don’t care if the other side does get crushed.
Chaos and drudgery are common themes throughout the poem, displayed in its form; it is nearly iambic pentameter, but not every line fits the required pattern. This is significant because the poem’s imperfect formulation is Owen making a statement about formality, the poem breaks the typical form to show that everything is not functioning satisfactorily. The poem’s stanza’s also begin short, but become longer, like the speaker’s torment and his comrades movement away from the open fire. The rhyming scheme of ABABCDCD is one constant throughout the poem, but it serves to reinforce the nature of the cadence as the soldiers tread on. The war seems to drag on longer and longer for the speaker, and represents the prolonged suffering and agony of the soldier’s death that is described as the speaker dwells on this and is torn apart emotionally and distorts his impressions of what he experiences.
Lastly, the overall message of this poem is that people through modern times doesn’t think about the people suffering in wars, hey don’t care enough. It makes us question on how we should act and how this affects our lives. Should we care more and sympathise about those that are dying, those that are innocent and suffering? This poem was very successful in making me re think about my emotions towards the was and it definitely made me look at the war photographer in a better light as they put their lives at risk to keep us posted on what’s happening overseas. This was cleverly written and Duffy’s emotions really showed about how she is disappointed and frustrated on how we look at war and death.
The tone is bitter and intense in a realistic way. It is achieved by the vivid and gruesome images in the poem. Wilfred Owen 's use of imagery in this poem is by depicting emotional, nightmarish, and vivid words to capture the haunting encounters of WWI that soldiers went through. In the first stanza, Owen depicts his fellow soldiers struggling through the battlefield, but their terrible health conditions prevent them from their strong actions in the war. When Owen says, “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags” (lines 1-2). This provides the readers with an unexpected view and appearance of soldiers, as they usually picture as strong, noble, and brawny-looking men. Soldiers sacrifice themselves to fight for their country and are exhausted from their unhealthy lifestyle. In lines 7-8, “Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots of gas-shells dropping softly behind,” they have lost the facade of humanity and their bodies are all wearied and weak on their march. This reveals a glimpse at the soldiers’ actions, as well as inferring to a psychological effect of the war. Then in line 5, “Men marched asleep,” the author is making abnormality to be one of the major purposes of the war, that it