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Modern American LitModern American Literature: Rise of Realism

Mystery of Heroism Bullets flying, people dying, a whole lot of anarchy, and all for a drink of water. In “A Mystery of Heroism” by Stephen Crane, the protagonist finds himself in a compromising situation of life and death. He risks it all just to be rite back where he started with no water. In the beginning of this story we find our hero taking shelter from artillery barrages behind a clay bank. Fred Collins who is the protagonist (a northern solder from A company in the civil war) starts to acquire a thirst. While he’s asking around off in the distance a man on a horse gets shot down out in the middle of the open field. Shortly after that a lieutenant of artillery flounders his horse down the hill seeming unshaken by the steep rocky hill. Collins asks him if he could go get a drink from a well in the middle of the lifeless land. Not to long before he gears up to move out his comrades start teasing him about how thirsty he is. Finally after many minutes and a lot of ridicule he begins his quest of life and death retribution. During his trenching through the tiled down bodies he starts to consider what it is to be a hero. He soon dismisses that thought as he recalls borrowing fifteen dollars from a friend promising to pay it back the next day and then avoiding the friend for 10 months. He simply assumes that hero’s have no shame. Very quickly he notices that he is an intruder in the land of fine deeds. Once he gets close to the well enemy solders migrate from the woods. Collins has never felt this close to death but still so alive. Instantly bullets start flying at Fred as he goes for a dead sprint to the well as he tries to evade gunfire. Eventually he makes it to the well and is able to fill a few canteens and a bucket. During his journey back he runs across the solder that got shot down of the horse. He was horribly mangled and was unable to move. The fallen comrade asks him to spare a drink for a dying solder. While he is faced with this life and death situation he soon develops the true meaning of heroism. Collins discovers that to be a hero one must give and help without a benefit towards ones self. Therefore during that one shining moment Fred Collins was a hero in a lesser mans eyes. Thus in conclusion our hero discovers that life and death does not determine what makes a hero. When ones self does a selfless act without benefit they are classified under a hero even if only for that one spectacular moment. Fred Collins id wanted a drink of water, his super ego just wanted to help a fallen comrade and his ego decided to help him over helping himself. One thing is for sure though, bullets did fly and people did die. All for a drink of water.

In __Yellow Wallpaper__ the main character’s name is Jane who is the narrator of the story. She plays the part of the sick wife who has a mental illness. The antagonist is the house they are living in because it is haunted (or so it seems). Their relationship is not very good seeing as how the house is playing tricks on her. The foil is the house keeper who is also john’s sister. And john is the husband who is a doctor. The story of The Yellow Wallpaper is told by the woman, who acts as narrator (Gilman). Her husband, a physician, has rented a mansion for the summer so she can recuperate from neurasthenia. She rests in an upstairs room, a former nursery, with peeling yellow wallpaper which becomes her obsession. He husband forbids her to do anything, particularly write, so she keeps a diary in secret. She is tended by her husbands sister, Jennie, and the nanny takes care of their baby boy. As her condition worsens, the woman becomes more obsessed with the wallpaper, trying to trace its patterns. The narrator is one with the woman in the wallpaper, and in setting the woman behind the wallpaper free, she is liberating herself. Her cries for help have gone unheeded, her husband keeping her medicated to the point where she cannot think straight. It is possible she was suffering from postpartum depression, and he has pushed her further and further towards a mental breakdown by the way he has treated her, keeping her almost bedridden, encouraging her to rest, not wanting her to even write. Symbolically, Gilman is telling society that men cannot continue to oppress women without suffering the consequences. The female narrator does not fight back against her husband in the Yellow Wallpaper. Even though he is a doctor, and her brother is a doctor, neither believe she is really sick, and propose a rest cure. She does not agree and even says, "Personally I disagree with their ideas...I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good" (Gilman). She shows not only the restrictions placed on her by her husband, but symbolically, the restrictions placed on all females in American society at that time.
 * Chopin’s “Story of and Hour” and Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”**

In Crane’s A Mystery of Heroism, the search for the question ‘What is a hero?’ is explored. Fred Collins, a union soldier in the Civil War, is a simple man. Out of place, Fred is a shameful, childish man thrown into a war that has no place for him. During the course of the story, Collins yearns for a drink of well water located across an active battlefield. Going against all his inhibitions and judgment, and going along with peer pressure, Collins decides to make the suicidal trip. Remarkably, Collins somehow gathers himself together and reaches the well of water, surprising himself in the meantime. Upon arrival at his destination, Collins ponders the miraculous obstacles he overcame and even dubs himself a hero for a moment. But what is a hero? Must one run across a battlefield for a drink to be put in the category of courageous? Is heroism nothing but defying death? Fred Collins evaluates his life at this point to disprove the title he loosely put upon himself. It could not be true. He was not a hero. Heroes had no shames in their lives and, as for him, he remembered borrowing fifteen dollars from a friend and promising to pay it back the next day, and then avoiding that friend for ten months. When 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, and his mother died since he had come to war. On Collins’ return to his regiment, he happens across a dying man in need of a drink. In a hopeless act of kindness, Fred lets the wounded soldier drink from his bucket as he passes. Yet this scene is but a small paragraph in the story, it completes the moral and emphasizes Crane’s goal of the narrative. Although Fred Collins is but a simple man not free from flaws, he uncovers the mystery of heroism. He is not a hero because he put a title upon himself, or because he denied death the satisfaction. He is a hero in the sense that he did a good thing without trying for that hero title. Yet he might not know it, he was a hero for that one moment in the eyes of the wounded soldier. Crane also shows heroism works in very mysterious ways.
 * Crane’s “Mystery of Heroism”**

How does the author indirectly characterize the protagonist through the use of dialect? What does this tell us about the character? How are they influenced by their id, ego, or superego?
 * Wharton’s “April Showers” and Twain’s “The Invalid’s Story”**

The Invalid Story In “the Invalid Story” a man named Becket who has deceased is being transported on a train from Ohio to Wisconsin. There are two other people on the train with him who are alive. One person is invalid and the other is Thompson (who promised Becket he would escort his lifeless body). They start to smell this foul odor and can’t seem to figure out what it is. They Desperately try to mask the smell with anything they can find. They start giving him military rankings for how bad the smell gets. They attempt to burn out the smell from standing outside in the bitter cold for hours. Turns out the odor they smelt all along was just blue cheese. There id wanted to get rid of the awful smell, there ego tried to mask the smell, and there super ego wanted to deal with it and respect the deceased. Ultimately they get to where they need to go. But unfortunately Thompson has taken a turn for the worse. When they finally got off the train they were frozen to the breaking point. Thompson came down with a horrible fever and never got his health back. This was his last trip, he was going home to die.