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The Theme Of War In War Is Kind By Stephen Crane

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In the thought-provoking poem “War Is Kind,” poet Stephen Crane challenges romanticized ideas of war through devastating portrayals of the horrific results of cyclic violence and battle. While Crane’s sorrowful imagery describing the thousands of senseless deaths and the heartbreak of those left behind sufficiently expresses his anti-war views on its own, Crane also skillfully utilizes several other poetic techniques and devices to demonstrate his purpose on a deeper level. Specifically, Crane’s use of a refrain, manipulation of structure, dramatic irony, and emphasis on theme through diction and characterization of the speaker function together to portray the horrors of war and the toxicity of glorifying violence.
While “War Is Kind” is written …show more content…

The speaker outwardly stating “war is kind,” enforces the poet’s starkly contrasting opinion that war is quite simply unkind, as war takes the lives of lovers, fathers, sons, and thousands of other young men. Presenting depressing images like “a field where a thousand corpses lie” (line 11) and “the affrighted steed ran on alone” (line 3) in a glorified and heroic way creates a feeling of unease, which translates to the poet’s desired attitude that war is gruesome, horrific, and anything but kind and praiseworthy. When considering the entirety of the poem, the speaker appears to represent someone with the complete opposite views of Stephen Crane. For example, the speaker seems to regard war with a sense of reverence, undeniable respect, and a blind defense of war even when death directly ensues. Directly telling those who just lost someone very dear to them “war is kind” seems borderline audacious if not blatantly disrespectful. Only someone with a true belief and devotion to the idea that war is a kind and positive concept could possibly defend it in that way. In contrast, the poem suggests that the poet has no respect or feelings of awe towards war, as any reasonable person would not praise war in the face of the deaths of …show more content…

More specifically, war brings nothing but death, sorrow, and heartache, and the so-called patriots that encourage war only spread toxic misconceptions to youth that fuel the continuous cycle of death accompanying wartime. The poet does more than criticize war itself, but also criticizes those who support and defend war, like the speaker. Phrases like, “These men were born to drill and die” (line 8), “point for them the virtue of slaughter” (line 20), and “make plain for them the excellence of killing” (line 21) exemplify the toxic ideas about war fed to young, impressionable soldiers by war-hungry military leaders. Stating these claims so plainly reveals the absurdity the poet believes such views carry, illustrating his belief that sending young people to war and training them for battle is tantamount to sending them to their imminent deaths while molding them to be merciless killers in the process. Ultimately, the poet illustrates the theme that war is horrific by essentially equating war to death throughout “War Is Kind.” The majority of the descriptions of war in the poem allude to death, such as the deaths of the lover, the father, and the son, and the acrimony of the “field where a thousand corpses lie” (line 11) and “little souls who thirst for fight” (line 7). With every line, Stephen Crane forcefully portrays the monstrosities of war and his unwavering vehemence to all that war

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