Irony In Stephen Crane's War Is Kind

Over the past 3400 years, the world has only been completely peaceful for 268 of them which is only about 8% of the time. War raises controversy in the world and divides countries and nations over the debate of its morality. During the time period around WWI, writers played a major role in the protesting of war and of its effects on society. Writers use methods of irony, structure, and imagery in their works in order to protest war. Writers often use ironic writing to sway the minds of society in order to protest against war. Irony is profound in many poet’s pieces aiming at protesting war. For example, in Stephen Crane’s, “War is Kind”, Crane uses sarcasm and irony when he tells readers “not (to) weep/War is kind” (25-26). This is ironic

Crane aims to move the hearts of readers by appealing to their sympathetic feelings towards those who have lost loved ones in war. This is similar to Amy Lowell’s, “Patterns”, in which she writes about a young female who just lost her significant other in battle and mourns his death thinking that the couple “would have broke the pattern/(but) Now he is dead” (83, 90). Lowell aims to protest war by showing the dangers and loss of those who participate in the wars. She claims there becomes a pattern and a status quo in society of men going to war and women supporting them however, she desires to break that pattern but is unsuccessful in doing so because of war. Poets such as Kevin Powers who wrote “Yellow Birds” uses the irony that men are actually cowards when they choose to go to war. Powers writes that war

Wilfred Owen writes about the harshness and physical effects that are experienced in war in his poem “Dulce et Decorum Est”. Owen writes about soldiers being “drunk with fatigue: deaf even to the hoots/of gas shells dropping softly behind” (7-8). Owen appeals to reader’s sense of imagination and hopes readers will picture the horrible events that are not commonly discussed about war thus changing their opinions on the matter. Owen shows the harsh effects that can happen during war and aims to bring attention to the fact that war is not actually heroic but dangerous and evil. Owen goes on to end his poem by writing “you would not tell with such high zest.../The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori” (25-27). This means that “it is sweet and honorable to die for one’s country” which is see as a lie by many. Owen believes that war should not be portrayed as an honorable or desirable act because he believes it is not and he desires to make readers feel the same way in his writing by depicting the image of a man lying to a child about the horrors of war. Poets such as Emily Dickinson elaborated on these ideals. Dickinson sets the scene of a dying soldier in her poem “Success is Counted Sweetest” when she writes about the soldier hearing “the distant strains of triumph/Burst agonized and clear” (11-12). The scene shows the risk that soldiers take in participating in the war. Soldiers risk losing their life and