Nature and War in Stephen Crane's "A Mystery of Heroism"
...ooked down at a fair little meadow which spread gently at their feet. Its long, green grass was rippling gently in the breeze”. If this image serves to remind the reader of the peacefulness nature offers, then the following lines shatter that image, as Crane most likely intended: “Beyond it was the grey form of a house half torn to pieces by shells and by the busy axes of soldiers who had pursued firewood.” Again, these two images contrast nature and violence, peacefulness and chaos. Similarly, Crane expresses the unfairness that war inflicts upon nature and its creatures. He writes of “Brown earth [was] being flung in monstrous handfuls…there was a massacre of the young blades of grass. They were being torn, burned, obliterated.” One almost feels sorry for the grass; it’s being described as “young” lends it an innocent quality that should somehow exempt it from such a ferocious fate. The author suggests that to dirty such a “gentle little meadow” with the atrocities of war is akin to hurling obscenities in the face of a maiden. Just as the grass is helpless under the incessant fighting, the horses are at the mercy of the soldiers. They must submit to their master’s will, or whatever “these incomprehensible humans demanded with whip and spur.” Interestingly, Crane does not describe the soldiers with the same tenderness as he describes the meadow and the horses. Both serve to illustrate the unfairness of involving nature’s unknowing creations in the hideous practice of war, but what of the humans that are assuring its lasting presence? To some extent, the soldiers are like the horses, in that they must submit to a higher authority, or else punishment will ensue. This higher authority, the government, decrees that all men of a certain age must...