How is the reader presented with an unresolved issue Analysis?
“A Mystery of Heroism” by the author Stephen Crane is a story based on the soldiers at war. The story highlights Fred Collins, a soldier, during one of the civil wars in Europe who goes to look out for water so as to save his fellow soldiers in the middle of the war taking place; his colleague soldiers think his act as being stupid and foolish but Collins thinks it will be a heroic act to get to the well amid the battle and fetch water (Crane, 2010). He feels that since he does intimidated by any fear, passing through the battlefield for water at the well will mark him a hero. He indicates how the combat costs a lot and yet attains insignificantly. The soldier is in conflict about his heroism deeds. He is not sure himself if he can make a hero or maybe not but yet the author of the story still uses him as a character with the heroism. The heroism as in the title is brought out as parody for the reader while making the ‘mystery’ as the believable issue.
The story highlights the impulsive actions of Collins to fetch water from the well. He is intimated by the fellow soldiers’ joke. He decides to get to the well despite the lurking danger of being killed. Eventually, he is at the well and for a moment he feels, the fear he had tried to fight back within him even in the previous events. He recalls the moments he had borrowing fifteen dollars from a close friend and promising to pay it back the following day, and then shunning that friend for following ten months and when he was at home his mother had aroused him for the early labor of his life on the farm, it had often been his fashion to be irritable, childish, diabolical (Crane, 2010). Crane also states that, “his mother had died since he had come to the war” (2010). Collins is later thinks that his move was motivated by the pride from the intimidation. Most combats are as a result of foolish and stupid pride like Collins’ intimidation resulting to his action.
While hurrying back with a bucket of water, he stumbles as an injured soldier request for the water. Instead of saving the soldier with water so that he heroic claims are displayed he fears and goes past him. After a second thought he goes back to the wounded soldier and gives him the water. This is the only bravely action he takes and it does not even help. No sooner he gives the wounded soldier the water, than he passes away. As he joins the other colleagues, he is laughed at about the failure to accomplish his perceived heroism act. Out the joke from other colleagues, they end up pouring the water on the ground.
failure to save the wounded soldier as well as the act of spilling the water which was hard gotten Collins into the risky situation puts into question, the author’s aim of bringing out his intended message. Stephen Crane finishes the story as; “Suddenly there was an oath, the thud of wood on the ground, and a swift murmur of astonishment among the ranks. The two lieutenants glared at each other. The bucket lay on the ground empty” (Crane, 2010). He leaves his work with unresolved issues analysis questioning the heroism in the story and the characters themselves, the soldiers who are supposed to be heroes. However, they end up causing the foolish deeds in the story. He makes Collins’ struggle to get water very irrelevant in the end.
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is another story by Ambrose Bierce that highlights the events of slavery during the civil war that occurred in the United States of America. The author himself was participated in the Civil war that was characterized by inhuman deeds against the slaves. The author presents Peyton Farquhar who was a slaver holder as well as considered a rebel sympathizer. For his slavery actions, he is at the Owl Creek Bridge just ready to be hanged. Farquhar had earlier attempted to demolish the bridge which now was his death point. He fast falls into dreamland where he imagines himself escaping from the noose and rejoins his wife and children (Bierce, 2005). The Union soldiers try to shoot at him but the bullets miss him. He runs for freedom and arrives at his home. He is about to receive a warm embrace from his wife when he wakes up from the dream and comes in reality with the noose. He kicks hanging on the rope to death.
The story and its author sympathize with Farquhar regarding the human element the author does not seem to justify his hanging as fair since he himself was a slave holder and several slaves underwent dehumanizing conditions under his mastership. Peyton Farquhar’s sense of humanity is directly opposite of what the Union soldiers executing him are feeling. The author presents the soldiers as inhuman without any compassion. They perform the execution quietly as well as effectively (Bierce, 2005). They seem emotionally stable unaffected by the act of execution they are undertaking. It is understood that the annoyed union soldiers are justified with their emotionless execution in their quest and the reason for their fighting in the civil war.
However, contrary to the expectations of many the author seems to sympathize with the slave owner being hanged. This makes even anyone going through the story sympathize with him making the story with unresolved effective issue analysis. The author makes the reader feel for his family as well and yet the reader is fully aware of the that the executioners are right in what they are doing since Peyton Farquhar is a slave holder making many slaves suffer under him. He had attempted to demolish the bridge under which he is facing his death. Farquhar has attracted the author’s attention instead of the author capturing the civil war and why it was being carried on. He is more concerned about the inhumanity he is experiencing during execution rather than the cause for Farquhar’s execution.
The story turns horrifying for simple reason of the writer feeling for the slave master and not for the brutality of death that is experienced. Even though, anyone reading the work will side with the Union soldiers and their act of execution. In the end they are justified for what they are doing, fighting in the civil war. The author presents unsolved issue analysis by conflicting between the right and wrong. He presents the slave holder facing the pay for his wrong acts but when the executions are hanging him he feels sympathy for him. He makes the union soldiers seem inhuman and at the wrong. Even though in the end the reader would side with the union army, the reader is presented with an unresolved issue Analysis.
References
Bierce, A. (2005). An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. New York City, US: Recorded Books.
Crane, S. (2010). A mystery of heroism. New York: New York University Press.
