Poems by Stephen Crane



Poems by Stephen Crane

In his poems ("In the Desert," "A Man Said to the Universe," and "War is Kind") Stephen Crane talks about how bad the world is. The poem "In the Desert" is about a creature who ate his heart. When asked if his heart was good, the creature responded by saying that it was bitter, but that he (the creature) liked it that way. "A Man Said to the Universe" is a poem about a man who declared his existence to the universe which responds back to him saying that it (the universe) has no obligation to the man. Finally, "War is Kind" is a poem where Crane tries to make the agrument that war is better for its victims.

Stephen Crane's connecting thread between all three of these poems is that the world is bad. This connecting thread is most obvious in "A Man Said to the Universe," where a man states his existence to the universe, and the selfish universe acknowledged his existence, but still felt no need for anything different. The same thread is also present with a twist in "In the Desert," where a creature eats his own heart and declares it bitter (bad), but the creature also declared that he prefered it that way for two reasons, "because it is bitter and because it is my heart." The creature felt its own selfishness and enjoyed it, and therefore would not give it up or ask that it changed. Finally, "War is Kind" is a poem urging women to stop crying over their lost men because their men are actually terrible murderers and are better off having been killed in the war. Overall, from these three poems, Stephen Crane expresses his belief that the world is inherently evil and prefers it that way.

If we men like the world are inherently evil than why do we have a system of morals? Why do we care what others think of us, if it is better, for us, to fight for ourselves?