War is Kind by Stephan Crane
War Is Kind
Stephen Crane, 1871 - 1900
Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind. Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky And the affrighted steed ran on alone, Do not weep. War is kind. Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment Little souls who thirst for fight, These men were born to drill and die The unexplained glory flies above them Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom-- A field where a thousand corpses lie. Do not weep, babe, for war is kind. Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches, Raged at his breast, gulped and died, Do not weep. War is kind. Swift, blazing flag of the regiment Eagle with crest of red and gold, These men were born to drill and die Point for them the virtue of slaughter Make plain to them the excellence of killing And a field where a thousand corpses lie. Mother whose heart hung humble as a button On the bright splendid shroud of your son, Do not weep. War is kind.
A detailed analysis of the poem "War is Kind" by Stephen Crane prescribed for the O/L English Literature Syllabus by R.C.Fernando
War is kind by Stephen Crane echoes Wilfred Owen's poem on the WW1 "Dulcet Decorum est" which also brings out the savagery of war in graphic details of a soldier dying an agonizing death after inhaling poison gas released by the enemy. Both poets had first hand experience of war; Owen as a soldier who fought in the front and Crane as a war reporter.
Crane's poem of five stanzas takes us right into the heart of the battle field with soldiers crying and dying all around. Especially, the indented second and fourth stanzas captures the cruelty of war in sharply focused scenes of dying soldiers. Stanzas one, three and five, on the other hand, are about two women and a baby who have lost their loved ones in war. The first stanza is about a woman who has lost her lover, the second stanza about the loss of a father and third about the death of a son. In each of these stanzas, the poet seems to console the mourners in in a tongue in cheek manner.
The poem opens in tone of consolation: "Do not weep maiden.." which is immediately followed by the cutting lines: "for is kind". This is both ironic and sarcastic. Next, the poet presents to us the graphic image of a man who throws his hands wildly at the sky. If not for the verb "throw", it might remind us of somebody praying to God. The man on horseback must have been shot and after loosing control, he fell down and the scared horse ran alone. The frantic gesture of the dying soldier brings home the gritty reality of war with a shocking effect.
The second stanza begins with the "hoarse, booming drums of the regiment" with its deafening onomatopoeic effect. Those days drums were used to herald the advancing troops,may be to boost their morale. The next two lines bring out sad fate of the soldiers who are engaged in war:
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
Instead of glorifying the soldiers, as in patriotic poems such as Rupert Brook's "The Soldier", the poet, in this poem refers to them as "little souls". The poet's tone here is sympathetic and it contrasts with the traditional image of the soldier as a tough dare-devil type of man. The next line with its strong alliteration of "d" sound in "drill and die" suggest the dispensable nature of their doomed lives. In other words, they serve as pawns in the hands of the rulers with vested interests. The next line carries ironic overtones:
The unexplained glory flies above them
Glory is personified as an unreachable and fleeting phenomenon as the soldiers would never experience the so called "glory" while they live. The contrast between the ideal and the real nature of war is nowhere so evident as in the following lines:
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom—
A field where a thousand corpses lie.
The first line with its strong alliteration of "g" sound suggests the pomp and greatness of war especially with the allusion the Mars, the Roman God of War or the "battle-god". However, the next line creates a totally different scenario of corpse-strewn landscape, which reminds us of a similar scene in Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade:
"Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred"
The 3rd stanza is addressed to a baby whose father had died in war:
Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
The way the soldier dies here is no less horrible than the death of the soldier in the first stanza. The first world war was mainly an underground warfare as soldiers were fighting from trenches. The conditions of the trenches were appalling and many soldiers died of diseases rather than from war. The "yellow trenches" bring out the unhealthy conditions of the trenches. The excruciating pain suffered by the dying soldier is conveyed through the verbs "raged" and "gulped". This gruesome scene brings out the cruelty of war in no uncertain terms. These lines also echoes Dulcet Decorum Est:
"He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning".
This is immediately followed by the sharply ironic lines "Do not weep/War is kind".
The next stanza takes us to the battle field again:
Swift, blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.
The regimental flag with its golden crest seems to symbolizes the spirit de corps and heroism of war. The next line, however, conveys the stark reality of war as, according to the poet, the soldiers are just born to "drill and die". This sudden fall from the sublime to the banal is called bathos or anti-climax. The next two lines with "virtue of slaughter" and "excellence of killing" are also laden with heavy irony. The ghostly panorama of "a field where thousand corpses lie" again highlights the grim reality of war.
The final stanza with the image of a mother mourning his dead son provides an appropriate conclusion to the poem:
Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
The heavy alliteration of the "h" sound in the first line creates sense of heaviness of heart felt by the mother. The simile "humble as a button" is somewhat surprising and it links with the "shroud" in the next line. It is "bright and splendid", thus suggestive of a ceremonial funeral. In other words, the soldier is glorified after his death as one who laid down his life for the country and against this aura of glorification, mother's love has become insignificant like "a button".
The poem ends with the cutting lines:
"Do not weep
War is kind"
which runs like an ironic refrain throughout the poem.
Like most poems about war, this poem too brings out the cruelty of war and its miserable aftermath in telling imagery. The ironic style used in the poem reminds us of other war poems of the genre such as "blowing in the wind", "Dulcet decorum est" etc.
Crane’s poem practically drips with irony to drive his point home, that war cause pain that people forget about. He uses lines such as “Your lover threw wild hands toward the sky.” He tries to remind you that war steals the hearts of men from their lovers and the pain of them leaving intensifies when they learn that they have died. He reminds us of fathers, “ragged at his breast, gulped, and died,” who left their families behind to grieve and pray for them. These are two things that people experience every day and other people forget about because war has been spruced up in such a way that people forget about all that pain. He says it all in one irony drenched line, “war is kind.”
Another device that the poet uses is imagery to show how war is glorified and depicted in such a way that it creates a shroud over the horror and terribleness of war. He almost paints a picture in your head of a “swift, blazing flag of the regiment,” and the “eagle with the crest of red and gold.” It’s almost like your their on the field wait to go to war. You hear the “hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,” calling you into a bloody fight. But amongst all of this the pain has been washed away like a bloodstain on uniform.
The last device that is used is refrain. Crane masterfully uses it to bring imagery and irony together to make this poem a very powerful and moving one. His first line is almost the definition of irony “Do not weep maiden, war is kind.” It makes the reader wonder how war can be kind. He repeats words from that line three more time in his poem. And it’s always right after he says something about the pain war causes. Then he describes war in an almost beautiful way. He sneaks in “these men who were born to drill and die” and “a field were a thousand corpses lie,” to shatter the images of war being wonderful to bring it back to the reality that war is terrible thing.
With the clever usage of irony, imagery, and refrain Crane has moved all the misconceptions of war away to reveal the gaping wound it leaves of people’s lives. The agony of seeing their loved ones going off to some place to die and kill for a cause they might not believe in. In fact I hope this poem will help people understand the true horrors of war and not what books and movies tell them.