'A Mystery Of Heroism And War Is Kind'

Nobody ever truly wins in war. War is an unforgiving evil that brings only death and suffering. This is portrayed in Stephen Crane’s “A Mystery of Heroism” and “War is Kind” and also in Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” In these works, the authors created a theme from stories they wrote about that were set during the Civil War. Both authors also had a tone towards war and they used their stories to express them. The author’s tones, within the three stories, created a theme for war as being unruly, harsh, and unforgiving.

In the poem “War is Kind” by Stephen Crane, he writes in second person to the wives, daughters, and mothers of the fallen soldiers. “Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.” War is of course not kind, and that gives the poem irony. Nothing about war is kind. It is talking to the wife of a fallen soldier, and it is telling her not to weep. Even though, there is no doubt that she will cry. In war, people lose loved ones, and they suffer from that. “These men were born to drill and die. Point for them the virtue of the slaughter, Make plain to them the

He ends up going across an open battlefield to reach a well to fill up a bucket with water. “The artillery officer who had fallen in this meadow had been making groans in the teeth of the tempest of sound.” The fallen officer was left to die while just laying in the middle of a battlefield. He was forgotten and can only suffer. There was nothing left for him, so no one came back for him. “The bucket lay on the ground empty.” The whole point of the story was Fred getting the bucket of water for the regiment. He went through so much for it and came back with nothing. He risked his life for nothing, because he wanted to prove something; but after all of that work, he came back with no water. Even with hard work, in war, what is wanted won’t always be