o more heroes than the mourning wives and children. They both endure hardships and do what they have to do.Through comparing the short story and the poem, one can find similar scenes, as well as themes and attitudes. A part of the second stanza of “War is Kind” is a basic link between the two. “Little souls who thirst for fight, These men were born to drill and die. The unexplained glory flies above them”(p.494). In the story, people fight, because they are trained for it. They act like machines, as if that is all they ever do, which also brings about the theme they share: War dehumanizes people. They do not let emotions interfere with their work and their orders. “Unexplained glory” especially marks Crane’s realistic attitude. Soldiers are glorified, through romantics at least, but why; it looks unexplainable, because they have done nothing natural to be proud of.Crane’s attitude toward war is that war has no purpose and is bad and horrible. Ironic is though, that he writes almost the exact opposite, because he is being satirical and almost cynical. The very title “War Is Kind”, at first sight, gives the reader a wrong idea of Crane’s attitude. One expects him to go on and develop his point, to prove it. It seems as if he truly believed in that statement. Only when looking beyond and analyzing, one can dig out his true intentions. He is not writing in a straightforward style and it requires some thought to get the twist. There also is situational irony. Collins takes all this danger and hardship upon him just to get a bucket full water. He comes back and a little later, we learn that “the bucket lay on the ground empty”(Mystery, p.492). The reader definitely expects something else to happen. It was all for nothing. Collins accomplished nothing.Crane does not show that war is kind. In fact, he portrays the exact opposite. War by nature is bad. Both the story a...
