From Fear to Courage

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Recommended: Crane's use of color in the red badge of courage

From Fear to Courage

When new soldiers go to fight in a war, they never know what’s coming. Although events are preserved in stories by the veterans, nothing can capture the real thing. Seeing everything up close and personal can change a person dramatically. Soldiers may never be the same after traumatic events such as these. Wars test a person and shows how strong not just physically, but mentally, one is. Stephen Crane, throughout his novel, The Red Badge of Courage, creates three distinct tones by utilizing the stylistic devices of imagery and figurative language, which reinforce Crane’s fearful, unworthy and courageous attitude on the realities of war. In the novel, fear is one of the very first tones viewed as one begins the reading.

Throughout the early chapters, Henry is questioning himself, wondering if he can really be a brave soldier, wondering if he is going to be able to survive. Crane shows imagery with just about every sentence he writes. The quote, “He, too, threw down his gun and fled. There was no shame in his face. He ran like a rabbit” (Crane 30), shows how he ran from the war to think about his own safety, not about the other men around him fighting for their lives. Fear is shown in the previous quote just about everywhere. Henry runs away from his fear in fighting during the war but later realizes that he is ashamed of what he does. So Crane shows Henry trying to be stealthy about it all and not acting like he ran, but convincing himself that he ran for the better. In another quote, the figurative language shown by similes, and metaphors, give another example of fear. “To the youth it was an onslaught of redoubtable dragons. He became like the man who lost his legs at the approach of the r...

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... eyes. The fearfulness, unworthiness, and courageousness were only a few tones that caught my eyes while reading Crane’s thought on the realities of war. Crane wants his readers to be able to see and feel a realistic view on the war. He wants them all to realize the heartbreak and fear, the rage and the pain of war that all soldiers have gone through. Having a better understanding and facing the horrid truth helps you get into reality more than float around it. The realities of war may be gruesome, and hard to handle, but we should always respect the soldiers and be aware of the bravery it takes just to be out there fighting. Medals or not, having a high-ranking or a low-ranking, every one of those men and women deserve a little something extra.

Works Cited

Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. New York: Dover Publications Incorporated, 1895.

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