I Exist

A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”


I think the quotation above from Stephen Crane’s novel is suggesting that human is insignificant, compared to the whole world. The quotation accurately portrayed the feelings of Americans after the civil war. Before the Civil War, the United States of essentially an idealistic, confident, and self-reliant republic. During the Civil War, a LOT of Americans died, almost all men who went to war from that generation died. The shocking and painful results of the war changed the American’s opinion about war: war is something terrible. By the number of casualties in the Civil War, Americans realized how easy it is to take a human’s life, and how insignificant their life is compared to the world. I think Stephen Crane is trying to say: Humans are not so great and powerful, they are actually very weak and insignificant.