Stephen Crane

Have You Ever Made a Just Man?

Have You Ever Made a Just Man? - meaning Summary

Divine Admission of Failure

Crane's brief poem stages a stark exchange in which God claims to have created just men but immediately undercuts that claim: two are dead and the third is falling. The poem compresses themes of moral frailty, mortality, and the futility of human perfection into a single bleak image of collapse. Its economy and irony leave the reader facing the idea that justice or righteousness cannot survive human weakness or historical forces.

Read Complete Analyses

"Have you ever made a just man?" "Oh, I have made three," answered God, "But two of them are dead, And the third -- Listen! Listen! And you will hear the thud of his defeat."

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