Answer:
According to Stephen Crane's short story "A Mystery of Heroism" (1895) , Fred Collins is a real hero.
Explanation:
The title of the story "A Mystery of Heroism" and the author himself want to convey to us that heroism is a mystery; no one has identified and defined it. The reader is only inspired to explore the meaning of heroic courage and heroism. Neither the protagonist, nor the reader is able to solve the mystery of heroism.
For example first Collins and third person omniscient narrator considers Collin a hero,
“He was, then, a hero. He suffered that disappointment which we would all have if we discovered that we were ourselves capable of those deeds which we most admire in history and legend. This, then, was a hero. After all, heroes were not much.”
But just in the next lines doubt is created over whether Collins is really a hero,
“No, 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 had died since he had come to the war.”
So the author leaves it upon the reader whether to consider Collins a hero or not. He is a common man who has a lot of doubts about himself, so he can not be called a hero based on old “Idealistic Theory of Heroism” but based on new “Realistic Theory of Heroism”, Collins is a real hero.
To conclude I would mysteriously say, Collins is not really a hero, but he is a real hero.
