An Episode of War

by

Stephen Crane

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Themes and Colors
Rank vs. Human Judgment Theme Icon
Inexperience and Shame Theme Icon
War, Clarity, and Beauty Theme Icon
Nature and Human Insignificance Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in An Episode of War, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
War, Clarity, and Beauty Theme Icon

In Stephen Crane’s Civil War vignette “An Episode of War,” the protagonist, a lieutenant on his way to the field hospital, undergoes a radical change in his perception after a bullet strikes him in the arm. He soon discovers that people removed from the battle have a remarkably clearer understanding of it than he does. He also begins to notice the beauty in the world, realizations that Crane conveys with the type of language he uses to describe them. He asks readers to pay close attention to his word choices so that they can discern an argument about the way people pay attention in a military scenario. War, argues Crane, clouds logic and disguises basic truths about the world. Only those removed from it can see the world—and the war itself—as it really is.

Crane’s opening in the battle gives readers the feeling that combat complicates a person’s mere ability to think. Crane shrouds his opening battlefield scene in confusion. He describes the protagonist’s wound only indirectly: “suddenly the lieutenant cried out and looked quickly at a man near him as if he suspected it was a case of personal assault.” Crane never uses words like “gunshot” or “gunfire,” nor does he provide a loud bang to clue readers in to what’s happened. By leaving readers to discern a gunshot entirely from the lieutenant’s behavior, Crane places them in the shoes of his confused and unsuspecting soldiers. Just after being shot, the lieutenant tries but cannot find the direction of the gunfire. All he sees are “little puffs of white smoke” emerging from “the hostile wood.” Crane uses irony here (“little puffs” seem hardly dangerous) to heighten the confusion of the moment. Throughout this opening scene, Crane uses words like “mystery,” “astonished,” “mystically,” “puzzled,” and “awed” to cement this sense of confusion. By the time the lieutenant leaves his men to look for the infirmary, readers have a very good sense of how combat can frustrate the use of logic.

Encounters with non-active soldiers give readers the sense that real knowledge exists only outside the battle. At one point, the lieutenant asks a group of stragglers for directions to the hospital. They describe “its exact location” and then describe with perfect precision “the performance of every corps, every division, the opinion of every general.” The lieutenant meets this recitation with a look of “wonder.” The men’s perfect knowledge is clearly different from the lieutenant’s silent stare. Crane explains that “these men, no longer having part in the battle, knew more of it than others.” This is the first clue to his argument that those on the outside of conflict (such as these men) have a clearer understanding it than those in the middle of it (such as the lieutenant). The lieutenant soon meets another group of men who ask him for details “of which he knew nothing.” The word “nothing” is a powerful contrast to the stragglers’ repeated “every” (“the performance of every corps, every division, the opinion of every general”), an adjective which might as well amount to everything. In these encounters between a soldier straight from the front line and the camp life behind the scenes, readers get a deepening sense of the knowledge that is curiously denied to people who are closest to the battle.

Though he’s missed basic facts about his own battle, the wounded lieutenant soon learns more important, more universal truths about the world. Now that he’s safely removed from the fight, he takes an “intent pause” at the battle and suddenly notices the aesthetic value of the world around him. He can now observe things as a painter might, not just as a lieutenant: a “black horse,” some “blue infantry,” and the “green woods” combine into “a historical painting.” In the paragraphs surrounding the lieutenant’s release from combat, Crane’s deeply poetic language echoes this sudden shift in perception. Crane uses more alliteration (“glistening guns”), more similes (“as dramatic as the crash of a wave on the rocks”), more metaphors (“The sound of it was a war chorus”), and closer attention to psychological effect (the spectacle “reached into the depths of man’s emotion”). In order to stress his argument about the clarity that people gain with distance from combat, Crane describes this drastic shift in his protagonist’s awareness: “he was enabled to see many things which as a participant in the fight were unknown to him.”

Though Crane does not discuss art or writing with any depth in “An Episode of War,” readers can reasonably draw an autobiographical conclusion from the lieutenant’s sudden aesthetic epiphanies. Aside from writing fiction, Crane was a war correspondent in the Spanish-American War among other conflicts, traveling to front lines and then digesting his experience in print. The lieutenant’s awakening stands a metaphor for the role of the writer—especially the journalist—in society. Only someone, argues Crane, with a deliberate distance from his or her life experience can make compelling sense of it to others.

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War, Clarity, and Beauty Quotes in An Episode of War

Below you will find the important quotes in An Episode of War related to the theme of War, Clarity, and Beauty.
An Episode of War Quotes

The lieutenant was frowning and serious at this task of division. His lips pursed as he drew with his sword various crevices in the heap, until brown squares of coffee, astoundingly equal in size, appeared on the blanket. He was on the verge of a great triumph in mathematics, and the corporals were thronging forward, each to reap a little square, when suddenly the lieutenant cried out and looked quickly at a man near him as if he suspected it was a case of personal assault. The others cried out also when they saw blood upon the lieutenant’s sleeve.

Related Characters: The Lieutenant
Page Number: 653
Explanation and Analysis:

As the wounded officer passed from the line of battle, he was enabled to see many things which as a participant in the fight were unknown to him. He saw a general on a black horse gazing over the lines of blue infantry at the green woods which veiled his problems. An aide galloped furiously, dragged his horse suddenly to a halt, saluted, and presented a paper. It was, for a wonder, precisely like a historical painting.

Related Characters: The Lieutenant
Related Symbols: The Forest
Page Number: 654
Explanation and Analysis:

The battery swept in curves that stirred the heart; it made halts as dramatic as the crash of a wave on the rocks, and when it fled onward this aggregation of wheels, levers, motors had a beautiful unity, as if it were a missile. The sound of it was a war chorus that reached into the depths of man’s emotion.

Related Characters: The Lieutenant
Page Number: 654
Explanation and Analysis:

In fact, these men, no longer having part in the battle, knew more of it than others. They told the performance of every corps, every division, the opinion of every general. The lieutenant, carrying his wounded arm rearward, looked upon them with wonder.

Related Characters: The Lieutenant
Page Number: 655
Explanation and Analysis: