Compare And Contrast Charge Of The Light Brigade And The Red Badge Of Courage

1310 Words3 Pages

Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, and the poem, Charge of the Light Brigade, by Lord Alfred Tennyson, are two extremely distinct Authors' depictions of war in two very different ways. The most noticeable differences between the two are the interpretation of war, and the mood set forth by the individual authors. While both lead you through the journey, the method, and result, dramatically differs. Crane immediately sets the tone with tension, "Here they come! Here they come!" Gun locks clicked." (Crane) One can feel the anxiety building as the author leads the reader further into the scene. Set during the Civil War, a grim picture is portrayed, men running and screaming across "smoke-infested fields," (Crane) as they frantically swing their guns. This is war seen through the eyes of a young soldier, a "Youth," as the enemy approaches. The desperate nature of the scene is further felt when the soldier cannot recall if he loaded his gun, "As he caught sight of them the youth was momentarily startled by a thought that perhaps his gun was not loaded." (Crane) The desperation and panic …show more content…

As the soldiers "flashed all their Sabres bare," (Tennyson) they rode fearlessly into the gunned wielding enemy. The image of swords slicing, stabbing, chopping as they fight against a gun carrying army is brutal, to say the least. Even doomed as they were the 600 continues to charge onward, "Plunged in the battery-smoke, "Right thro' the line they broke," (Tennyson) the bravery of the soldiers shown as they push through not only gunfire but also cannons, "As horse and hero fell." (Tennyson) Reading further one realizes not only did the solders ride into the fight; they must make a return trip; I am sure, was just as bloody and the

Show More
Related

  • Stephen Crane and Walt Whitman: The Natural and the Language of Social Protest

    1813 Words  | 4 Pages

    Though in his short life Stephen Crane was never a soldier, his novel The Red Badge of Courage was commended by Civil War veterans as well as veterans from more recent wars not only for its historical accuracy but its ability to capture the psychological evolution of those on the field of battle (Heizberg xvi). Walt Whitman, on the other hand, served as a field medic during the Civil War. He was exposed perhaps to the most gruesome aspect of the war on a daily basis: the primitive medical techniques, the wounded, the diseased, the dying and the dead. Out of his experiences grew a collection of poems, "Drum Taps" , describing the horrors he had witnessed and that America suffered. As literary artists, a wide chasm of structure and style separates Crane and Whitman. The common cultural experience, the heritage of the Civil War connects them, throwing a bridge across the darkness, allowing them, unilaterally, to dispel notions of glorious battles and heroic honorable deaths. By examining Crane's Henry Fleming and the wound dresser from 'Whitman's poem of the same name, both fundamental literary differences and essential thematic consistencies emerge.

    Read More

  • To compare The Charge of the Light Brigade with The Destruction of

    656 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first poem we are going to look at is ‘The Charge of the Light

    Read More

  • Descriptions of Battle in ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ and ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’

    1423 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this essay I am going to compare and contrast the differences between ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ and ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’. ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ is written by Poet Lauriat Lord Tennyson and ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’ is written by Lord Byron. They both contain different poetic techniques and write about a battle in completely different ways.

    Read More

  • A Stillness at Appomattox

    1344 Words  | 3 Pages

    The day to day life for the regular soldier was not glorious. Many times the regiments were low on supplies such as food and clothing. They lived in the elements. Medical conditions were grotesque because of the lack of advanced equipment and anesthesia. “Discipline was enforced with brutality” as if all the other conditions were not bad enough.

    Read More

  • Comparison: All Quiet on the Western Front and The Red Badge of Courage

    2113 Words  | 5 Pages

    The poet Wilfred Owen was one of many poets who were against war. He reflected this idea of anti-war in his poems, one of his poems called “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, mirrors most aspects of war all put together in this short still deep poem. An example of that would be when the speaker stated,” What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”(1) The speaker asks is there any sound that marks our soldier’s death other than the sounds of church bell’s which are mostly rung to represent somebody’s absence? Clearly, the speaker sets anger as the tone of the poem through this question to show that soldier’s death is unremarkable.. The speaker compares the soldiers to a “cattle” which illustrates that soldiers are treated more like animals with no feelings and also shows how they are killed indiscriminately in war. Finally the line ironically contains an iambic pentameter which is a natural rhythm for such dark, grim, dull subject. The two novels, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, and All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, both present a similar idea of how soldiers are killed out there in the front comprehensively and the dehumanization of war towards its soldiers. The first novel is set during the Civil War, and it focuses on the psychological aspects of one soldier named Henry Fleming and how his naive thoughts about war constantly change through the course of the novel. The second novel presents the life of a soldier named Paul Baumer and his friends who were faced with the terribleness of war and how severely it affected their lives. The Red badge of Courage and All Quiet on The Western Front are similar in the way of how the main characters develop through the novel to change from naïve and innocent men ...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Charge Of The Light Brigade

    733 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Charge of the Light Brigade was written by Lord Alfred Tennyson six weeks after the actual event. Through his poem, Lord Tennyson created a speaker who closely mimics his ideological view on the Crimean War. The Crimean War was a war fought between the Russians and the Allied nations which composed of the British Empire, the French empire, the Ottoman empire and the Sardinians. The cause of the war was deeply rooted in political and religious aspect as the empires seek to maneuver to better their global position. It was with this goal for the empire that Lord Tennyson created a speaker who was proud and in admiration of the Light Brigade. Through the ultimate sacrifice of the soldiers, the speaker glorifies them for the empire.

    Read More

  • A Comparison of The Charge of the Light Brigade, Dulce Et Decorum Est and Anthem for Doomed Youth

    3029 Words  | 7 Pages

    A Comparison of The Charge of the Light Brigade, Dulce Et Decorum Est and Anthem for Doomed Youth

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast The Charge Of The Light Brigade And O Captain My Captain

    592 Words  | 2 Pages

    Charge of the light brigade and O captain my captain are poems about the defects of war and the impact it can have on people and the nation. Both authors give their perspective of war and how it impacts them. In order to do so they use literary devices to give their opinions. Charge of the Light Brigade and O Captain My Captain both share a theme of war but the authors give their own point of view of war using metaphors, personification, and tone.

    Read More

  • Compare and Contrast Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade and Owen's Dulce Et Decorum Est

    1860 Words  | 4 Pages

    This quote suggests that Tennyson’s poem glorifies the war, celebrating the sacrifice they had made for their country. By glorifying the Brigade, Tennyson has ignored the obscurity and massacre of the war; this is shown by the loyalty that the soldiers have for their country. The commitment of war in ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ is only shown because Tennyson's looking at war from afar .We can see this because in the poem he has not used descriptive language to describe what war was like, and has not shown the real outcome of war.

    Read More

  • The Red Badge Of Courage Essay

    792 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Red Badge of Courage is not a war novel. It is a novel about life. This novel illustrates the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Stephen Crane uses the war as a comparison to everyday life. He is semi-saying that life is like a war. It is a struggle of warriors—the every day people—against the odds. In these battles of everyday life, people can change. In The Red Badge of Courage, the main character, Henry Fleming, undergoes a character change that shows how people must overcome their fears and the invisible barriers that hold them back from being the best people—warriors, in the sense that life is war—they can be. Henry has a character change that represents how all humans have general sense of fear of the unknown that must be overcome.

    Read More

  • Heroism in Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage

    1786 Words  | 4 Pages

    The world of Stephen Crane's fiction is a cruel, lonely place. Man's environment shows no sympathy or concern for man; in the midst of a battle in The Red Badge of Courage "Nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden process in the midst of so much devilment" (89). Crane frequently anthropomorphizes the natural world and turns it into an agent actively working against the survival of man. From the beginning of "The Open Boat" the waves are seen as "wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall" (225) as if the waves themselves had murderous intent. During battle in The Red Badge of Courage the trees of the forest stretched out before Henry and "forbade him to pass. After its previous hostility this new resistance of the forest filled him with a fine bitterness" (104). More omnipresent than the mortal sense of opposition to nature, however, is the mortal sense of opposition to other men. Crane portrays the Darwinian struggle of men as forcing one man against another, not only for the preservation of one's life, but also the preservation of one's sense of self-worth. Henry finds hope for escape from this condition in the traditional notion that "man becomes another thing in a battle"‹more selfless and connected to his comrades (73). But the few moments in Crane's stories where individuals rise above self-preservation are not the typically heroicized moments of battle. Crane revises the sense of the heroic by allowing selfishness to persist through battle. Only when his characters are faced with the absolute helplessness of another human do they rise above themselves. In these grim situations the characters are reminded of their more fundamental opp...

    Read More

  • The Red Badge of Courage as a Naturalistic Work with Realistic Tendencies

    1669 Words  | 4 Pages

    There are many characteristics in Crane’s novel that would more readily fit within the category of realism: the ordinariness of his characters, the use of dialect, the portrayal of protagonist Henry Fleming as a complex individual, the description of nature as disinterested in human affairs, and the positive ending of the story. Realism, often described as "slice of life" or "photographic" writing, attempts to portray life exactly as it is, without twisting it or reworking it to fit it into preconceived notions of what is appropriate or what is aesthetically pleasing. In this book, Crane relies on neither the oversimplified rationalism of classicist literature nor the emotional idealism of romantic prose. Instead, he offers realistic, believable characters with average abilities. The soldiers are presented neither as epic heroes nor as bloodthirsty killers; rather, their most noticeable trait is their overwhelming normalcy. The soldiers of Henry’s regiment curse, fight, and argue just like normal people. This down-to-earth, gritty, everyday style is characteristic of realism. A particular convention used by Crane in convincing the reader of his characters’ existence is dialect. The distinctive speech of the soldiers enhances the photographic effect of the novel, lending it authenticity. Another distinctive trait of realism is complexity of character – a trait readily evident in Henry Fleming. As he switches between cowardice and heroism, compassion and contempt, and optimism and pessimism, the reader observes that he is more than just a stereotype. He is a person with fears, hopes, dreams, and foibles.

    Read More

  • The Red Badge of Courage

    1086 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Red Badge of Courage, by it’s very title, is infested with color imagery and color symbols. While Crane uses color to describe, he also allows it to stand for whole concepts. Gray, for example, describes both the literal image of a dead soldier and Henry Fleming’s vision of the sleeping soldiers as corpses and comes to stand for the idea of death. In the same way, red describes both the soldiers’ physical wounds and Henry’s mental vision of battle. In the process, it gains a symbolic meaning which Crane will put an icon like the ‘red badge of courage’. Stephen Crane uses color in his descriptions of the physical and the non-physical and allows color to take on meanings ranging from the literal to the figurative.

    Read More

  • Comparing Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est and Crane's Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War Is Kind

    2015 Words  | 5 Pages

    Both Stephen Crane's "Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War Is Kind" and Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" use vivid images, diction rich with connotation, similes, and metaphors to portray the irony between the idealized glory of war and the lurid reality of war. However, by looking at the different ways these elements are used in each poem, it is clear that the speakers in the two poems are soldiers who come from opposite ends of the spectrum of military ranks. One speaker is an officer and the other is a foot soldier. Each of the speakers/soldiers is dealing with the repercussions from his own realities of the horror of war based on his duty during the battle.

    Read More

  • Charge of the Light Brigade

    1244 Words  | 3 Pages

    As poet laureate and patriot, Alfred, Lord Tennyson was very influential in 19th century England. He successfully showed the ignorance of the English Army leaders while still reflecting his strong nationalist views in an attempt to create propaganda for the Crimean War in his poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” The charge was a tragic incident that took place in 1854 during the Crimean War, which was England, France and Sardinia against Russia, when English Army generals blundered and sent over six hundred soldiers on a charge that was destined for disaster. The solders were known as the Light Brigade and the charge resulted in over two hundred deaths to soldiers and over three hundred deaths to horses. In this horrific aftermath, Tennyson responded to this event by writing a poem which went on to become a classic. Tennyson was a strong nationalist and very political. He was moved and troubled when he received news of the tragic charge. The poem became a form of propaganda for the Crimean War due to Tennyson glorifying the sacrifice of the soldiers by using his exceptional writing skills. Although this poem is regarded by many as propaganda, he included the word blunder in the poem which showed the ignorance of the Army leaders.

    Read More

More about Compare And Contrast Charge Of The Light Brigade And The Red Badge Of Courage

Open Document