Stephen Crane is a master of creating well-known realistic scenes of combat and death. Crane was a poor writer, that created some of the greatest novels of all times. Although he lived a short life, he made sure he made something of it. Stephen was a courageous, anti war writer. He used a lot of irony and descriptive pieces in his stories which were influenced by poverty.
Stephen Crane was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1891. Crane was the youngest in a family of fourteen. He was among the first writers to rebel against the genteel tradition, with his false romanticism and repression. Crane and some of his contemporaries were learning to mistrust what society had taught and accepted. “Let a thing become a tradition and it becomes half a lie”(Sufrin 5). His desire to write was inspired by his family. In almost three years of poverty, Crane had written four impressive, highly original books: “Maggie,” “The Black Riders,” “The Red Badge of Courage,” and “George’s Mother.” Stephen Crane started out as a comic writer. One of his techniques, which informs all about his best stories and novels, was parody. Crane’s poetry, for the most part, was dedicated to the metaphysical problems raised by man’s relation to his god. His fiction on the other hand, portrayed man struggling to survive in the society. The controlling tone in Crane’s fiction was humorous, ironic,serious, and self conscious. Crane began his higher education in 1888 at Hudson River Institute and Claverack College, a military school which nurtured his interest in “The Red Badge of Courage.” At the end of the first semester Cranes had only received four out of his seven classes, and two of them were failing grades. The other three were not graded because he never attended the...
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...play I seem to feel, underneath the mirth and nonsense, a terrible hatred of mass opinion, a fervent faith in the individual's right to live”(Garland 56). “One of America’s most influential writers, Stephen Crane, produced works that have been credited with establishing the foundations of modern American naturalism. His civil war novel, “The Red Badge of Courage,” realistically depicts the psychological complexities of battlefield emotion and has become a classic of American Literature”(“Stephen Crane”
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“At the end of Stephen Crane’s life, literally on his deathbed, he returned to straight parody”(Soloman 12). Crane lived his life in poverty but that didn't stop him from writing. He was a courageous man and his life was strictly about writing. Such an approach to Stephen Crane’s fiction may make him appear to be a negative artist, a critic rather that a creator.
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.
The Red Badge of Courage and The Blue Hotel: The Singular Love of Stephen Crane
“The Red Badge of Courage” was written by Stephen Crane in 1985 as a fictional tale of a soldier of the Civil War. With its accurate depictions, readers were led to believe that Crane had at one time been a soldier. This was however not the case. Crane has a unique way of using themes and symbols in “The Red badge of Courage” to relay a very realistic portrayal of war.
Beaver, Harold. "Stephen Crane: The Hero as Victim." Modern Critical Interpretations: Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. Ed. Harold Bloom. NY: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. 65-74.
Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage is a Civil War novel written in 1895. The novel tells the story of a young soldier who flees from the war, and subsequently is afflicted by mental anguish. Though the novel may be centered around the Civil War, the real war revolves around this anguish occurs in Henry’s head. From the onset of the novel, the protagonist tries hard to reconcile the mythological stories of past heroes arising from glorious battles with the ordinary and much less exalted experiences of his regiment. When presented with the knowledge that he may be moved to the front lines, Henry begins to deliberate over the war and glory he envisioned with the reality of the situation he is now in, and wonders if he’ll return ‘with his
According to The Poetry Foundation, critics have had numerous debates on what literary movement The Red Badge of Courage should be classified as. Crane’s novel has been considered a work of realism, naturalism, impressionism, and symbolism. Those who view the novel as realistic see it as the “first unromanticized account of the Civil War” and a truthful depiction of war and soldiers (Poetry Foundation). The naturalistic viewers believe that the characters and experiences of the novel “are shaped by social, biological, and psychological forces” (Poetry Foundation). The Red Badge of Courage also displays many unique symbols and images and also a “consistent use of color imagery” which leads critics to classify the novel as Symbolistic and Impressionistic as well (Poetry Foundation). To sum up the literary movement of the novel, Edwin H. Cady stated, “’The very secret of the novel’s power inheres in the inviolably organic uniqueness with which Crane adapted all four methods to his need. The Red Badge’s method is all and none’” (Poetry
Stephen Crane's purpose in writing The Red Badge of Courage was to dictate the pressures faced by the prototypical American soldier in the Civil War. His intent was accomplished by making known the horrors and atrocities seen by Unionist Henry Fleming during the Battle of Chancellorsville, and the conflicts within himself.
Stephen Crane was a realistic author who often times wrote about the difference in ideal life versus reality. He is seen as one of the most groundbreaking writers of his time. Crane’s poetry was unique during his time period because most of his poems told a story; they were narratives. In Crane’s poem “In the Desert” he shows that a person who can overcome their mistakes and not let the negative aspects of life overwhelm the positive is a person who is human.
When Crane notes that, “ it was strange/ to write in this red muck,” there is an indication that he is becoming increasingly more aware of the true effects of personal incorporation into one’s writing. There is a distinctive role that personal and cultural biases play in literature, as one author may incorporate a certain word into their writing that another author does not see as socially appropriate to use, it is the personal inflictions of an author that shape their work and Crane exemplifies the self realization of the important impacts that these inflictions
In the novella Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Other Short Fiction by Stephen Crane, Crane tells a story about Maggie, a girl who lives in the slums of New York City in the 1800s with her family and friends. In novella it is portrayed that Maggie desperately tries to escape the slums, however, because of Maggie’s environment and social forces, it ultimately led to her downfall and demise within society.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Modern Critical Interpretations: Stephan Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. New Yourk: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
Crane's story is about a girl named Maggie who grew up in a life that would cause any person with feelings to have the utmost sympathy for her. To explain briefly; her brother was a roughneck in the community, her mother and father were alcoholics, a younger brother died at a young age, and they lived in a tenement building. Crane is described as a "realistic" author because of the way he describes the social environment and the stress of everyday life.
113-117. Modern Critical Interpretations: Stephan Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. Cody, Edwin H. Stephen Crane. Revised Edition.
Gibson, Donald B. The Fiction of Stephen Crane. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1968. 128-133.
If it was not for Stephen Crane and his visionary work than American Realism would not have taken hold of the United States during the eighteen hundreds. During the years following the Civil War America was a melting pot of many different writing styles. Many scholars argue that at this time there was still no definite American author or technique. Up to this point authors in the Americas simply copied techniques that were popular in regions of Europe. Stephen Crane came onto the scene with a very different approach to many of his contemporaries. He was a realist, and being such he described actions in a true, unadorned way that portrayed situations in the manner that they actually occurred (Kaplan). He had numerous admired pieces but his most famous work was the Red Badge of Courage (Bentley 103). In this novel he illustrates the accounts of a Union soldier named Henry Fleming. At first the writing was considered too graphic and many people did not buy the book. Eventually the American people changed their opinions and began to gravitate towards Crane’s work. The readers were fascinated by the realistic environment he creates even though he himself had never fought in a war (Bentley 103). By spreading the influence of realistic writing Crane has come to be known as the first American Realist.