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The red badge of courage as a psychological novel
Conclusions about the theme of the red badge of courage
Conclusions about the theme of the red badge of courage
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The Red Badge of Courage
Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, combines realism and naturalism to depict the deadly confrontation of men in war. The use of these traits uniquely exhibits Crane's talent to express characters, to describe setting, and to create a theme. The use of naturalism is quite dominant, but realism is also present and used to great effect.
Realism is a common trait shared by all of the characters. The figures in this novel are perceived to be believable with average abilities. These characters are neither epic heroes nor robots. They curse, fight, and argue like real humans in the real world. A common technique practiced by all notable writers is the use of dialect. "Well, yeh kin b'lieve me er not, jest as yeh like. I don't care a hang."(2). The distinguishing use of speech captures the realistic aspect of a conversation between characters. Another distinctive trait of realism is the disinterest that nature plays in the affairs of the soldiers of war. For example, after escaping the battle, Henry Fleming seeks refuge in the woods. He notices that the woods seal out the sound of battle and ignores the human conflict taking place: "It seemed now that nature had no ears"(34). Lastly, the positive outlook is the third characteristic of realism. Henry is overwhelmed with fear and abandons the war. Surprisingly, he escapes unscathed and later learns that his regiment had ended the battle victoriously. ...
In The Red Badge of Courage, Henry Fleming was drawn to enlist by his boyhood dreams. His highly romanticized notion of war was eclectic, borrowing from various classical and medieval sources. Nevertheless, his exalted, almost deified, conception of the life of a soldier at rest and in combat began to deflate before the even the ink had dried on his enlistment signature. Soon the army ceased to possess any personal characteristics Henry had once envisioned, becoming an unthinking, dispas...
The Red Badge of Courage and The Blue Hotel: The Singular Love of Stephen Crane
For example, Henry’s actions in the second battle convey his initial cowardice. In response to the enemy coming back to fight, Henry “ran like blind man” (Crane 57). Henry’s actions illustrate his cowardice since he is afraid to stay and fight and flees instead. However, as Henry matures throughout the novel, he learns to control his fears and show courage through his fighting. For instance, in the battle after Henry rejoins the regiment, Henry “had not deemed it possible that his army could that day succeed, and from this he felt the ability to fight harder” (Crane 133). Henry portrays bravery in this battle, since he still fights with all of his strength, when he believes the enemy would win. Henry’s change from cowardice to bravery is conveyed through his act of running away from battle, to fighting courageously in
The Red Badge of Courage, by Steven Crane, has been proclaimed one of the greatest war novels of all time. It is a story that realistically depicts the American Civil War through the eyes of Henry Fleming, an ordinary farm boy who decides to become a soldier. Henry, who is fighting for the Union, is very determined to become a hero, and the story depicts Henrys voyage from being a young coward, to a brave man. This voyage is the classic trip from innocence to experience. The soldier story, The Red Badge of Courage, was used to reflect the harsh Civil War realities. Cranes style of writing to portray these realities included the technique of symbolism. In this technique, symbols are hidden within certain objects throughout the story to help express the theme. Henry, Jim Conklin, and Wilson all symbolized a specific aspect of mankind.
Author Stephen Crane attended many schools through out his life, but writing came to be his profession. The Red Badge of Courage, Crane’s most successful novel, was considered one of the first forms of realistic war fiction written on the Civil War. Some critics say that the unknown battle in Chancellorsville influenced Crane to write this novel. Through out the novel Crane’s shows how Henry Fleming transformed from a cowardly teenage recruit to a hero of war. This novel proved that any soldier, whether he is a sergeant or private, can pull through at the right moment, and be seen as a hero.
Henry Fleming begins as an immature soldier who enlists in the army without knowing a reason why. Henry has a romantic view of the war, and expects it to be glorious: “They [battles] might not be distinctly Homeric, but there seemed to be much glory in them. He [Henry] had read of marches, sieges, conflicts, and he had longed to see it all.” Henry obviously lacks maturity because he was very determined to enlist in the army, but tries to blame the government for being at war.
Stephen Crane, born in November 1, 1871, was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote many notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Nationalism and Impressionism. Crane is recognized by modern critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation. Crane, being the ninth surviving child of the Protestant Methodist parents, began writing at the age of four and had published several articles by the age of 16. Crane's first novel was the 1893 Bowery tale Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, generally considered by critics to be the first work of American literary Naturalism. He won the international acclaim in 1895 for his Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage, which he wrote without having any battle experience. Crane was led to write stories based on his real life experiences. On the route to Cuba, Crane's vessel the SS Commodore, sank off the coast of Florida, leaving him and the others on board adrift for 30 hours. Because of this situation occurring, Crane was led to write The Open Boat, which described his ordeal. In the Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane uses
needed on the farm and not in the war. Henry knew his mother would not
Bloom, Harold, ed. Modern Critical Interpretations: Stephan Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. New Yourk: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
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.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Modern Critical Interpretations: Stephan Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. New Yourk: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
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.
Henry Fleming’s growth is demonstrated after the first battle when he becomes mentally stronger and surmounts his fear of being a coward. Henry Fleming is a romantic dreamer, inspired by visions of a chivalric type of warfare in which he becomes a mighty hero (Solomon). He reads of “marches, sieges, conflicts, and longed to see it all”. (Crane, 4)” He never knows where he is going or what is expected of him until the order comes.
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.
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.