War is Kind by Stephen Crane - Essay Example

War is Kind The poem ‘War is Kind’ is written by Stephen Crane. The poem critically analyzes destructive events and death in the war. He presents a positive view for the destructive events, stating that war is kind (Crane). The author in the poem associates brutalism and deaths in the field as a positive event. Analyzing the poem, it can be determined that author make use of the word ‘kind’ but at the same time the poem portrays disturbing perception among its readers. War is a destructive event that takes lives of several people and deprives families from their loved ones. The poem ‘War is Kind’ is the use of sarcasm approach of the author to sway the mind of the readers to be critical about the war showing the reality. This reflects that the author has made a sarcastic approach to define the destructive events of war, such as; the sarcastic approach of writing the poem creates a sense of confusion and provokes the mind of the readers. The phrases the poems are emotionally heavy to appeal the attention and emotion of readers (Crane). It provides a real picture of human emotions, describing the condition of mother’s feeling at the time of death of his son then ending the stanza with ‘War is Kind’ provokes the mind of the readers to critically think about consequences of the war (Crane). Crane make use of the figurative language in the poem to create a strong visualization among its readers, such as the author makes use of ‘Mother whose heart hung humble as a button, on the bright splendid shroud of your son, do not weep. War is kind” (Crane line 23). This shows that the author shares the pain of the mother’s heart and at the same time says War is kind (Crane). He makes use of ‘heart hung humble as a button’ to explain the feeling of a mother at the time of the death his son. In addition, the author has also related the courage of solider with the animal according their glory and characteristics. The second stanza of the poem ‘glory’ is associated with the bird characteristics, as the phrases portrays that glory fly, but the glory cannot fly (Crane). This creates a sense that the ‘glory’ is associated with a flying bird, such as a falcon or eagle. The metaphor is to associate the glory with the bird to demonstrate soldiers (Crane). The metaphor in the stanza of the poem relates solider with the eagle, demonstrating their courage and fearlessness (Crane). The use of the different figures, body organs and number spontaneously creates strong visualization among the mind of the readers (Crane). The author says to not to cry, though a solider has lost his life (Crane). The use of figures in the poem enhances the visualization of the readers while reading the poem (Crane). Through this the effectiveness of the objective in the poem is more enhanced. Analyzing the structure of the poem it can be determined that the stanza’s of the poem end repetitively with ‘Do not cry, war is kind’. In addition, the opening of each phrase is with ‘Do not cry’ further the author address mother, girl babes and mostly females’ characters in the poem (Crane). This shows that the author has repetitively made use of the female characters but with different names, such as, mother, babe, and girl etc (Crane). Crane in the poem makes use of constant repetition through out the poem to draw attention of the readers to possible maximum point. The author makes use of the sarcastic phrases such as ‘War is Kind’ and ‘Do not Weep’ again and again (Crane). The repetition of these phrases enhances the objectivity by challenging the fundamentals of war. For example seen in the phrase “Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind… do not weep, war is kind... Do not weep, babe, for war is kind… Do not weep; War is Kind” (Crane lines 1, 4, 5, 12 & 26). This draws the attention of the audience again and again towards the sarcasm author portrays through the use of the phrase saying ‘War is Kind’ (Crane). The repetition emphasizes on the horror, fear and brutal side of the war, it at the same time convince the readers to exact opposition of the consequences that war brings in human life (Crane). Analyzing the tone of the poem, it can be determine that the poet uses sarcastic tone in the poem (Crane). This is because of the reason that Crane in the poem portrays the feeling and emotions of the people at the time of war; on the other hand it relates it and says that the war is kind. In the poem the author has stress on the emotions more rather than explaining what he meant through saying ‘war is kind’. For example “A field where a thousand corpses lie, Do not weep, babe, for war id kind… Raged at his breast, gulped and died (Crane line 22).” The tone author uses in the poem is sarcastic, besides of this the author repetitively mentions honor and dark side of the deaths in war. Analyzing the poem the first thing that comes to my mind is that the author has made an excellent effort to appeal reader’s attention, at the same time his sarcastic tone use in the poem provoke the readers to think critical about the actual effects of war (Crane). The author has showed the real human emotions to show how the war affects people (Crane). Though the author states that ‘war is kind’ but actually the readers can sense that the ‘war is not kind (Crane)’. The use of sarcastic tone and figurative approach in the poem the author aims to visualize and have a better understanding about war (Crane). The author states that though the soldiers are trained to fight, but they should not find (Crane). The feeling their wives, mother, father and family suffers after their death drags them to life of misery and emptiness (Crane). Work Cited Crane, Stephen. War is Kind. New York: MobileReferences, 2010. Print. Read More