Absurdity and Futility in War Theme Analysis

Stephen Crane’s “A Mystery of Heroism” follows Fred Collins, a soldier who gets goaded by his fellow infantrymen into crossing a dangerous battlefield to get water from a well, even though no one actually needs the water. Collins, then, leaves the safety of his regiment’s shelter and takes an absurd risk for a trivial goal. Collins eventually does succeed in retrieving a full bucket of water from the well and runs back across the battlefield with it. When an officer dying and unable to move in the middle of the field calls out to him for water, Collins initially shouts that he can’t stop and runs by, then turns around anyway. Hands shaking, he splashes the water all over the dying man who gets essentially none of it to drink, making the action of turning back ironically pointless. When he finally reaches his regiment again, Collins is met with laughter at his ridiculous but miraculous success. Then, in a joking scuffle over the bucket by two silly lieutenants, the water gets spilled and wasted. Ultimately, no one gets even a drink. Meanwhile, the story is also filled with petty and ridiculous moments, with officers calling out instructions no one follows, soldiers milling around to no effect, and a commanding officer ignoring the good advice of an underling out of pride and spite. The squabbling dysfunction of the regiment along with the very concept of Collins’s unnecessary quest, his failure to successfully give the dying officer a drink, and the story’s ironic twist—the spilling of the hard-won bucket of water—indicate the futility of individual effort among the chaos and absurdity of war.

The absurdity of war is initially established in the story through the incompetence of the regiment and officers. The infantry aimlessly observes the battle, but does not take part in it, and becomes more interested in Collins’s endeavor to cross the battlefield than the conflict raging upon it. Soldiers calmly remark on the brutal deaths of their comrades—“There goes th’ bugler!”—as though watching a sporting event. When, occasionally, rational orders or advice are given, they are ignored by officers who seem to seem to see such competence as a threat to their position. The joviality of the spectating regiment in the face of the brutal violence and chaos of the battlefield emphasizes the ridiculousness of the procedure of war.

Collins’s quest—to risk his life to fetch water when none is needed—is itself absurd, and as the primary goal of the story, reflects that absurdity also onto this specific battle and onto war as a whole. Just as Collins’s foolhardy quest for water has no great impact on himself or others, his role as an infantryman carries no weight. His individual efforts as a man who is thirsty are no more and no less useless than his individual efforts as a soldier, should he be given an opportunity to fight. His role, then, like the many men the infantry has watched die on the battlefield under the onslaught of falling explosives, would be to die randomly, caught by an exploding shell. When he requests permission to risk his life for water, his superiors allow him to go, implying his uselessness on the battlefield and suggesting that his death on a silly mission and his death in battle amount to the same. His life is not worth more to his superiors than a pointless trip for water, and his individual efforts mean nothing against the great chaotic machine of war.

Though Collins’s journey to the well is unnecessary in concept, it becomes even more ironically futile when the water he endangered himself to retrieve is spilled twice over. Returning across the battlefield with his bucket of water, Collins impulsively turns back to give a dying officer a drink. In his terror for his life, Collins’s hands shake; the water spills onto the dying officer and Collins runs away again before the officer gets a proper drink. Collins actions in returning to the officer can be considered heroic; but his heroism is thwarted by his terror. Further, there is no saving the dying officer. Drink of water or not, he will die. So even the heroic act of Collins offering the water is futile, and one can argue that the heroism in the act is defined by its futility—by showing kindness that will have no impact on the outcome for this dying man. The final moment of ironic pointlessness in the story is the ultimate fate of Collin’s retrieved bucket of water, which is immediately spilled by careless officers jokingly roughhousing about who gets to drink it. Collins’s ridiculous and pointless quest which, with the kind act to the dying officer, might have meant something, is rendered ultimately futile.

Collins accomplishes an impressive—though ridiculous—feat in surviving the battlefield twice over to bring water back from the well. However, the war, the chaos of the battlefield, and the carelessness of the officers contrive to reverse his success. In his quest and in his snap decision to return to comfort the dying officer, Collins attempts to make meaningful choices as an individual, unlike the rest of his regiment who stand gawking at the battle because their superiors refuse to provide or accept rational orders. Yet every effort Collins makes at taking action as an individual, even towards such a pointless comfort as getting a drink of water, is ironically reversed by the circumstances of war. There is a common belief that, irrespective of everything else, war at minimum gives soldiers the chance to define themselves, to become heroes, to gain glory. In the way that each of Collins’s choices and actions are rendered futile, “A Mystery of Heroism” argues the opposite: that amid the chaos or war it is absurdity that reigns, and any meaning is just the product of luck or accident.