Symbols and Symbolism in Crane's The Red Badge of Courage

1958 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Research paper the red badge of courage

Characters as Symbols in Crane's The Red Badge of Courage

The Red Badge of Courage was a significant novel in the way that the characters were portrayed. Crane hardly ever used the actual names of the soldiers. He simply described them as the loud soldier, the tall soldier, the cheery soldier, and the tattered soldier. Crane made the characters stand out in the use of describing them and promoting their relationship with Henry and his struggle during the battles. Crane did a fantastic job with relating the different characters with different roles that Henry was involved in. The loud soldier, tall soldier, cheery soldier, and tattered soldier all have a significant part in creating the novel. The characters in the book are there to serve Henry by prompting him to action or reflection or by being a comparison or contrast to him.

In The Red Badge of Courage, the loud soldier's real name was Wilson. His character dramatically changed as the novel progressed. At the beginning of the novel, Wilson is an extremely loud and boastful soldier. This is exactly how he received the name loud soldier. Wilson is initially loud, opinionated, and naïve. For the first half of the book, Crane refers to him almost exclusively as "the loud soldier." Some examples of his loud and obnoxious self was when Crane described him as the loud one from a corner and when the loud soldier kept saying "Huh, and shucks" (Crane 11)! When Henry and the loud soldier talk of fighting the loud soldier seemed so confident and self-assured that he said, "We've got `em now. At last, by the eternal thunders, we'll lick `em good" (19)! Another time Henry encounters the loud soldier he indignantly assures Henry that if battle occurs, he will...

... middle of paper ...

...to help Henry. Overall, these characters have a strong role and relationship with Henry.

Works Cited and Consulted:

Berryman, John, Stephen Crane: A Critical Biography. 1950. Rpt. In Discovering Authors. Vers. 1.0. CD-ROM. Detriot: Gale, 1992.

Bloom, Harold, ed. Modern Critical Interpretations: Stephan Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. New Yourk: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.

Cody, Edwin H. Stephen Crane. Revised Edition. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980.

Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. Logan, IA: Perfection Learning Corporation, 1979.

Gibson, Donald B. The Red Badge of Courage: Redefining the Hero. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988.

Wolford, Chester L. "Stephen Crane." Critical Survey of Long Fiction. Ed. Frank N. Magill. English Language Series. Vol. 2. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Salem Press, 1991.

Show More
Related

  • The Red Badge of Courage and The Blue Hotel

    576 Words  | 2 Pages

    However, the most traditionally "romantic" facets of his artifice are most fully manifested in a series of private correspondence between himself and a certain society maiden by the name of Nellie Crouse. It is these letters that serve to illustrate Crane's writing prowess as it transcends traditional Romantic genrefication. Through these letters, which serve as an informed testament to Crane's marked skill as a writer, we begin to examine Crane in the context of his own existence, devoid of the fictional trappings of his most acclaimed accomplishments.

    Read More

  • Comparing Red Badge of Courage and Great Expectations

    633 Words  | 2 Pages

    The hero of The Red Badge of Courage, which was written by Stephen Crane in the late 1800s, was a young private named Henry Fleming, who was fighting for the North in the American Civil War. Like Pip, in Great Expectations, Henry was a commoner. He was new to the Army and few people knew his name. The main difference between Henry and the earlier heroes is that Henry was not born with leadership qualities or traits like bravery. In fact, in the first battle he fought, he proved himself to be a coward by running from it.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Henry In The Red Badge Of Courage

    854 Words  | 2 Pages

    Events of crisis tend to reveal people’s true character, as well as help those people learn from the experience. Decisions people make during crises can display what kind of personality they have. In The Red Badge Of Courage by Stephen Crane, the youthful main protagonist, Henry, decides to join the army. In the beginning of the novel, Henry exhibits multiple cowardly qualities. However, through a series of battles, Henry learns more about himself and begins to become a remarkably brave soldier. Henry’s transformation from cowardice to bravery is portrayed through Henry’s change in thoughts, actions, and dialogue.

    Read More

  • Patriotism In 'The Red Badge Of Courage'

    391 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the Red Badge of Courage, the protagonist Henry, is a young boy who yearns to be a Great War hero, even though he has never experienced war himself. Anxious for battle, Henry wonders if he truly is courageous, and stories of soldiers running make him uncomfortable. He struggles with his fantasies of courage and glory, and the truth that he is about to experience. He ends up running away in his second battle.

    Read More

  • The Transformation of Henry Fleming in The Red Badge of Courage

    1108 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gibson, Donald B. The Red Badge of Courage:  Redefining the Hero.  Boston:  Twayne Publishers, 1988.

    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

    ...erryman, John, Stephen Crane:  A Critical Biography.  1950.  Rpt. In Discovering Authors.  Vers. 1.0. CD-ROM.  Detriot:  Gale, 1992.

    Read More

  • Globalization Has Destroyed the Middle Class

    2246 Words  | 5 Pages

    The world is not a large and strange place anymore. The world is a place that is interconnected and intertwined. The world has become from a place that each country and their peoples are separate and isolated to a place that each country and their peoples are part of a global network. Thanks to globalization this is occurring. Globalization is the ‘international integration” or ‘de-bordering’ – “a number of highly disparate observations whose regular common denominator is the determination of a profound transformation of the traditional nation-state” (Von Bogdandy 2). Globalization is connecting different people from different cultures and backgrounds together. More and more corporations are entering new foreign markets to sell their products to the native populations. But at the same time globalization is negatively hurting people and countries. Globalization is hurting workers and small countries. Workers are forced to work for low wages and small countries are being manipulated by large countries. Globalization is having a negative impact on this world and it outweighs any positive it produces.

    Read More

  • is globalization undermining state sovereignty?

    1544 Words  | 4 Pages

    Globalization has several definitions, as Andrew McGrew underlines it. He uses four different ones in order to get a more complete definition. In this way globalization is defined as ‘the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shared by events occurring many miles away and vice versa’, ‘the integration of the world-economy’, the ‘de-territorialisation – or growth of supraterritorial relations between people’ and finally as ‘time-space compression’ (Giddens, 1990, p. 21, Gilpin, 2001, p. 364, Scholte, 2000, p. 46, Harvey, 1989, cited in Mc...

    Read More

  • Use of Color in Crane's The Red Badge of Courage

    1652 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Red Badge of Courage uses both color imagery and color symbols. While Crane uses color to describe, he also allows it to stand for whole concepts. Gray, for example, describes the 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 Fleming's mental visions of battle. In the process, it gains a symbolic meaning which Crane will put to an icon like the "red badge of courage" (110, Penguin ed., 1983). Crane uses color in his descriptions of the physical and the metaphysical and allows color to take on meanings ranging from the literal to the figurative.

    Read More

  • Stephen Crane and American Realism

    1508 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Nations Should Promote Globalization, Not Localization

    1779 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...ent prevails over the degradation. In my opinion, the benefits of globalization discussed in this paper are far more important than it's costs or the costs and benefits of localization. Although, localization and globalization will continue co-existing, globalization will continue to increasingly dominate over time because most countries are generally leading to and becoming more accepting of the idea of globalization. In conclusion, the benefits gained by globalization are the most important to people's lives because it aides in the learning process of people expanding their horizons and understanding the benefits to countries, organizations, and groups working together. Although losing some part of one's national identity can be a disadvantage at times, the advantages of being able to work together and help each other in a globally integrated world are much more.

    Read More

  • The Conflict Between the Ukraine and Russia

    1600 Words  | 4 Pages

    Globalization is defined as “the historical process involving a fundamental shift or transformation in the spatial scale of human social organization that links distant communities and expands the reach of power relations across regions and continents (Baylis, 2014).”

    Read More

  • Globalization as a Social Change

    1114 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the recent years globalization has begun to appear as one of the most predominant issues in the world. The term ‘is generally used when discussing the technology and advances in an assortment of areas including, but not limited to, everything from technology to capital. The main aspects that comprise globalization are debatable. Throughout this essay, globalization will be explored as a recent social change in our society as it relates to incorporating economic relations and incorporations political relations around the world, despite the fact that this change is often portrayed as a problematic and unequal one of the restrictions of mobile subjects and connectivity. To begin my segment, I’ll begin to discuss on some of the most important definitions of globalization. Lastly, I’ll begin to investigate the imbalanced and difficult practices that make up globalization.

    Read More

  • Globalization Affects Culture

    1500 Words  | 3 Pages

    Globalization has taken place in the past when state and empires expanded their influence far outside their border. However, one of the distinctions of globalization today is the speed with which it is transforming local culture as they took part in a worldwide system of interconnectedness. Through globalization, many cultures in the world have changed dramatically.

    Read More

More about Symbols and Symbolism in Crane's The Red Badge of Courage

Open Document