Preview

Stephen Crane and Gwendolyn Brooks

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
513 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Stephen Crane and Gwendolyn Brooks
Stephen Crane and Gwendolyn Brooks “Do Not Weep Maiden for War Is Kind” a poem by Stephen Crane is written in a way that reveals how war is an atrocious creature through verbal irony. In “The Sonnet-Ballad” by Gwendolyn brooks, she portrays death as a flirtatious lady. Both of these authors do an extraordinary job in using imagery and irony to sketch their thoughts about death and war. Through the use of imagery Brooks characterizes the coquettish death and how her loved one was fooled into betraying Gwendolyn and running away with death. Brooks’s lover sees death as a beautiful woman; she slowly pulls him in until he is no longer living. “Possessive arms and beauty can make a hard man hesitate-and change.” Brook sketches great imagery of how this glamorous flirty death fooled a man and changed him forever. In a correlative way, Crane uses repetitive imagery all through the poem to also emphasize the horrid acts of death. “Do not weep babe for war is kind. Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches, raged at his breast, gulped, and died.” How can Crane make it any clearer? Death is cruel and careless.
Gwendolyn Brooks and Stephen Crane also put irony to work in their poems. When you read Cranes title for the poem you automatically have a feeling of sarcasm and irony. “Do Not Weep Maiden for War is Kind.” This is an incredible use of irony by the writer Stephen Crane. If we were to ask a million people, I believe very high numbers of people would say war is not a kind thing. Crane uses this technique not because he’s stupid or because he doesn’t know how to write but instead he uses it to create a great emphasis on the fact that war is not kind. “These men were born to drill and die.” Here we have another example of the great use of Cranes irony. Men are not born to just drill and die. We all agree in that. All through history great men existed and they did not just drill and died, they worked and achieved great levels of knowledge. “Would have to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Irony is a literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy. In the story, The Pedestrian Bradbury uses irony to write the whole story. Mr. Mead wasn’t doing anything wrong, he was just walking and yet he was arrested. Another example of irony is in the story Fahrenheit 451 when he explains the fireman’s theory. “Plant the books, turn in the alarm, and see the fireman’s houses burn, is that what you mean?” (85). The wrong is so obvious in both of these examples but things that are wrong still happen and irony is used to make us see these wrongs…

    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The author uses ironic diction to present war as a calamitous machine that of which yields to no one. The first words that arise from the work to the reader is “Do not weep” (Crane 1st stanza), yet it does not comfort the audience. The title emphasizes that the poem is sarcastic and this makes the reader feel doubtful towards the greeting presented to them. In addition,…

    • 416 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are various examples in which the dramatic irony is explicit. The King has high expectations of the deeds that Macbeth is going to fulfill. He trusts Macbeth and he has just been assigned to be Thane of Cawdor. “He was a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust”. The King is referring to the former Thane of Cawdor who betrayed him, he’s committing the same mistake twice, but he seems to be too naïve, not considering the fact that maybe Macbeth can betray him too. Macbeth is not planning on doing so yet, but he is being tempted to. The…

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The excerpt "Death of a Soldier," taken from Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott features various rhetorical strategies to create an appeal to emotion. She exhibits the compassion of the nurse for John, even in the face of inevitable death; she displays the altruistic mindset of John, and adds depth to her words by using analogies. She uses these tools in order to inflict a deep emotional feeling and an understanding of how awful the situation actually was.…

    • 585 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Red Badge of Courage

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Examples of irony are continuous throughout this book. Just looking at the title of the book is also ironic for Henry did not, in my opinion, get his red badge of “courage” by being courageous. He received it by being hit by another private of his own regiment and not by doing something courageous (67, 68). In my opinion it should be called a “Red Badge of Shame” instead. Another example of irony can be found in chapter 1. It introduces Jim Conklin, a soldier in Henry’s regiment. He goes to wash his clothes, but comes flying back with news that he heard from a “reliable” soldier. But this “reliable friend” obviously isn’t reliable because he didn’t hear these news directly from the source, but from another soldier, and so on (6). This is ironic because they all act like the news are completely correct and exact, but it isn’t. Irony is used in this book to describe Henry’s journey from a raw recruit to a seasoned soldier. Crane uses dramatic, situational, and verbal irony in this novel, from the beginning to the end of this book.…

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    War is presented in various ways in literature with each writer presenting it in their own unique way due to influences in their social and historical background e.g. Owen wrote poems about war as he was experiencing it. One of the factors on whether a piece, be it a poem or a play or a novel, was positive or negative towards war all depended on the writer’s attitude towards war e.g. Jessie Pope’s “Who’s For The Game?” is all about her trying to convince men it was all a bit of fun to join the war and fight for their country, which makes perfect sense for a woman to say as women during the time of world war one often encouraged men to join war as they stayed behind to look after the children ect. But the poems I want to discuss are “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen and “Who’s for The Game?” by Jesse Pope. The play i'm going to Discuss is “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare.…

    • 2592 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Chapter 26 of Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, he explains that any great literary work is dripping with irony. At first glance, a reader may not see the it, but a closer look at a book like Kate Chopin’s The Awakening will make a reader snicker at all the irony that comes to light. In The Awakening, the relationship between protagonist, Edna, and her husband is ironic. As Edna is approaching, sunburned, he looks at his wife “as one looks at a valuable piece of property which has suffered some damage” (Chopin, 7). Mr. Pontellier feels as though he owns his wife, but throughout the book she ignores his opinions, has affairs, and eventually leaves him. The relationship with her husband is not the only ironic one Edna has; she has a love hate relationship with her children. Trying to appease her “mother woman” friend, Adele, Edna says, “I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself” (Chopin, 80). However, Edna’s death was very selfish because instead of saving her children, she took away their mother. Edna’s death was Chopin’s great irony in The Awakening. At the end of the book, Edna wades, into the sea, purposefully, until “it [is] too late; the shore [is] far behind her, and her strength [is] gone” (Chopin, 190). Edna’s great awakening, her realization of freedom and self, leads to her suicide. Once a reader is trained to look for irony, she will never stop seeing it, adding depth and humor to the reading…

    • 265 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Irony To Protest War

    • 284 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Secondly, the writings that portrayed the most irony to protest war is by Stephen Crane and Wilfred Owen. In the poem, “War is Kind,” by stephen Crane (Doc A),irony is used throughout the poem to protest war. For example, “Do not weep. War is kind,” is very ironic because war is horrible but the author says it is good. These lines prove that the author is using irony to protest war. This quote is very ironic because of how it is used throughout the poem where Stephen elaborates on the negatives effects of war but in the end says war is kind. In the end, Irony is used throughout the poem, “War is Kind,” based on the author's perception of the war. In the poem, “Dulce et Decorum Est,” by Wilfred Owen (Doc B), irony is used in the title and the…

    • 284 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Kenneth Slessor

    • 1277 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Slessor, having been a participating member in World War II, uses his poems, for instance ‘Beach Burial’, to explicitly distinguish the bodies of the dead floating through the water, and the commonality of death. ‘Beach Burial’ concludes by stating “whether as enemies they fought, or fought with us, or neither; the sand joins them together.” This is the persona’s recognition that there are dead soldiers on both sides, yet their humanity is bonded by their common fate of death. Effectively, the unity between soldiers of all nations, is through death. This is all very ironic, when the attitude of war is considered and the purpose of what soldiers are fighting for. However, the race, country and objectives of each person is no longer important upon the passing from one life to another. The war has ended up being what sentences them to death and essentially joins them as one. Regardless of the fact that ‘Beach Burial’ was written from an Australian author’s perspective, it has not pledged allegiance to a single country or alliance, nor does it celebrate a victory. It is instead, a tribute to all who were defeated. Death is an unexpected force that has the ability to change perspective. Kenneth Slessor is best known for his elegiac poems, ‘Beach Burial’ and ‘Five Bells’ and in turn, his ability to construct “a poem of serious reflection, typically involving the lament for the dead.” In these, it is the position of the elegist which Slessor inhabits through a persona, but he is truly, exclusively referencing to himself as the poet. ‘Beach Burial’ is an elegy about the multitude of lost lives through war. ‘Five bells’ along with ‘Beach Burial’ is written to lament the loss of life. His poems have a tendency to illustrate the confrontation of death and the misfortunate experience of those who are grieving the remembrance of a dead soul,…

    • 1277 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    War Photographer

    • 641 Words
    • 2 Pages

    “War Photographer” makes us feel pity by using effective word choice. “Hands...tremble” The word tremble suggests that the photographer has been so traumatised by what he has witnessed at war that he is unable to control his own body. We pity him here as we understand how overwhelmed he must be by the horrific images of war. Later on in the poem, we feel pity again towards the end of the poem because of word choice. “...eyeballs prick with tears...” The word prick makes us think of a small, short-lasting pain that will soon be forgotten. Although the readers are generally upset by seeing images of war sufferers, the emotions only last momentarily as the reader is detached from the experience and is unable to fully relate to the true terrors of war. This causes us to feel pity as the photographer has become mentally scarred undergoing this entire trauma to capture these photographs when the public back home are left unaffected by them in the long term.…

    • 641 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Stephen Crane talks about death like it is a casual thing. He glorifies people dying and uses ironic emotions to show his opposing opinion to war. Crane puts the war in a different perspective than people expected to see it in. Crane opposes the war, in the poem “War is Kind” and short story “A Mystery Of Heroism” he uses irony to show this with surviving through bad times and the use of ironic emotions.…

    • 543 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Situational Irony

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Situational Irony is also present in The Most Dangerous Games. An example is when Whitney and Rainsford are talking about if the hunted have feelings. Later in the story Rainsford finds out what it is like to be hunted (Connel 216). This showed irony because what Whitney and Rainsford came true. The irony also helps support the theme of treat others the way you want to be treated. “One of us is to furnish a repast for the hounds. The other will sleep in this very excellent bed. He had never slept in a better bed Rainsford decided” (Connel 225). The situational irony in this quote is that General Zaroff was fed to his hounds that he sent to go kill Rainsford.…

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The poet glorifies war and glory and seduces men to the idea of it, but in reality they are just skeletons. They're seduced to their deaths.…

    • 402 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    War Is Kind

    • 313 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In conclusion I was able to comprehend Stephen Crane’s poem “War is Kind.” I see this poem as Crane expressing his anger towards the pointless death of young men in war. Crane’s philosophy about war seems to be that death is glorified, and that the military throws away young men’s lives and tears families apart. The poem seems to glorify war, but in an ironic, sarcastic manner so that Crane’s true feeling about war are…

    • 313 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Symbolism – “What passing-bells for those who die as cattle” Cattle being led to the slaughter – the young men and the young men as cattle, no name just a number, also cattle slaughtered to feed the hunger, young men slaughtered in their droves to feed a hungry war. Imagery – vivid images created using extensive sound devices especially alliteration “riffles’ rapid rattle” “sad shires” shows where many of the young men are from. Rejection of religion comparison for the normal funeral and death on the western front “no mockeries now for them: no prayers or bells” “What candles may be held to speed them all?” “drawing-down of blinds” something that is done when someone dies, paints a…

    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays