Untitled poem by Stephen Crane

The imagery of this poem is staggering. Crane's description is reserved and succinct but allows endless personal interpretation into the appearance and demeanor of his "creature." The creature is never mentioned to be humanoid or even ugly, but in my mind, these images first arose. In one word, "desert," Crane achieves a profound level of imagery: I envision a blazing red expanse, dulled with orange, where the hard, packed earth does not burn or chill. The landscape vaguely reminds me of the one portrayed in Salvidor Dali's painting The Persistence of Memory. I've read the poem many times now and remain baffled as to how Crane can provide such clear images with such simple words.

Thematically, this poem presents a far vaster challenge of understanding. The essence of meaning is veiled by Crane's sparse language, which inversely succeeds in creating the depth of imagery and personal attachment I described previously. In fact, an identical process occurs here, but time for reflection and analysis are necessary.

I believe the theme to be that people who seem consistently joyless and sullen may not find such misery in their conditions as others might suppose: these emotions are who they are. The creature says his heart is "bitter—bitter," but he professes that he enjoys eating it because of its bitterness, "because it is my heart." Crane implies that humans appreciate themselves for how they have defined themselves in their own minds, regardless of the beauty of these definitions.