Irony In Stephen Crane's 'War Is Kind'

“War is peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is strength.” This strong quote by the famous English novelist and critic George Orwell is a very powerful message surrounding how to some people, including himself and the writers in our Mini Q, see war as its polar opposite. The experience of the war influenced each writer to protest war in different ways. Owen, O’Brien, and Powers all were soldiers fighting in the war doing different tasks like machine gunning and even being the common foot soldier. Writers like Crane were reporters and were not actually fighting. However all carry the same message and goal in their different poems and writings. Writers use imagery, irony, and structure to protest the arts of war.

First of all, writers use imagery

Stephen Crane and Wilfred Owen are examples of these writers who use irony to protest war. In his poem “War is Kind”, Stephen Crane uses irony to protest the fact that war is not kind. For instance when Crane says “the unexplained glory flies above them, Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom”(Crane). This shows his use of irony by telling how great war is when in reality, war is not so kind as he says. This is ironic as he compares it to a sort of heaven and how there is a god of war comparing it to the Christian belief system today. However, this is in fact ironic because this is not true and war is not as great as the people say and tell people it is. Second, writer Wilfred Owen also uses irony in his poem “Dulce et Decorum Est”. Towards the end of the last stanza Owen states “To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori”(Owen). This shows irony that all this time they are telling the new recruits in soldiers that it is sweet and right to die for their country when in fact it is only a mindset and is in fact not good at all. It is ironic because they have told the soldiers these lies which causes most to get killed in battle to only cause hurt for the family back home which is not sweet and right. The writer tells the reader after seeing this horrible incident he saw, you would not tell a young boy with desperate glory the old lie that once was told to him. In conclusion,

Writers like Stephen Crane and even Kevin Powers use structure in their own unique way to show their testament against war. Writer Stephen Crane uses structure in his piece “War is Kind” by skipping stanza to stanza from a different person to the battlefield in situations where they have lost a loved one. In this he skips from a weeping maiden saddened about the lost of her lover to the battlefield and seems of fighting and unexplained glory. This structure causes the reader to go back and forth but also shows the reader in a unique way just how hard it was on the family's to be separated or without their loved one due to a ignorant war. In all cases, the structure shows the pain of the person saddened by their loved one's death. Writer Kevin Powers also uses his own way of structure in his piece “The Yellow Birds”. The weird part about this is that his way of structure, is not having one at all. In this excerpt, there is no structure whatsoever as it carries on and on and doesn't switch point of views or scenes. However, this form of structure per se is called stream of consciousness narration which is a method that describes in words the flow of thoughts in the minds of the characters. In this excerpt, the character rambles on about how after all the people he has killed, he deserves to die. He is guilt tripping himself due to his severe PTSD when in reality it was him just saving his own life and doing what he had to do. The