Humankind has constantly been at war. From fighting over land, riches, or power to fighting for “more complex” or “more honorable” ideals such as freedom or equality, man has never had a lack of things to fight over. It is almost as if it is something innate, born and passed through generations. It has great consequences – both for the people fighting and for the civilians who watch their countries descend into turmoil – and yet, it is seen as a necessary evil. In The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane weaves a tapestry of war themes using interlacing threads of personification, metaphor, and color symbolism and imagery to depict war’s dehumanization of man as Henry Fleming discards his youth and takes up the banner of adulthood.
Crane lends war many human aspects through use of personification while the actual human beings in the novel are dehumanized with the stripping of their names and individuality. When the individuals of Henry’s regiment move to perform any given action, the regiment as a collective creature is given the personification of a soldier’s body: “The sore joints of the regiment creaked as it painfully floundered into position” (Crane). Though many of Henry’s regiment are young, green recruits with only a spattering of veterans, the diction of this sentence shows that they are all already war-weary; the toll the violence and horrors of battle takes on the young men is terrible. This consolidation of the men – of individuals – into a single entity removes what little pretense of individuality Crane gives his characters. Even the protagonist, Henry Fleming, is referred to as only “the youth.” By neglecting to give his characters names and by so often referring to the men as only parts of a greater whole, Crane s...
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...t man may delude himself into thinking battles are fought for higher purposes like honor and glory when the reality is that all men are equal – in death.
Works Cited
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Crane, Stephen. "The Red Badge of Courage." Page by Page Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. .
Marcus, Erin. "Animal Imagery in the Red Badge of Courage." Modern Language Notes. By Mordecai Marcus. 2nd ed. Vol. 74. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1959. 108-11. Print.
McDermott, John J. "Symbolism and Psychological Realism in The Red Badge of Courage."Nineteenth-Century Fiction. 3rd ed. Vol. 23. Berkeley: University of California, 1968. 324-31. Print.
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. Sculley Bradley, Richard Beatty, and E. Hudson Long Eds. New York: W.W. Norton, 1962.
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. United States of America, Chatham River Press, 1984. Print.
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.
“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.
The Red Badge of Courage takes place during the Civil war and begins with a soldier named Jim Conklin returning back to his regiment to inform them that they might go into battle any day now. The main character of the story Henry Fleming who was recently recruited in the 304th regiment begins to worry about how brave he really is since he has never really been in battle before. The main reason he joined the army was for the honor and glory that came after the battle but he never really analyzed what it took to gain all the glory and honor that he wanted to obtain.
"The Red Badge of Courage" is the story of how war changes a boy into a man. It shows how you will do things you will later forget. How you may have the wrong idea of just how brave and courageous you are. This book shows how one event can change a man forever.
War is not meant to be glorified. War is not meant to look easy. Stephen Crane was one of the few authors during his era who realized this fantasy-like aura around war and battles and decided to do something about it. The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane, was inspired by Crane’s life and his desire to portray the realistic side of war.
Gibson, Donald B. The Red Badge of Courage: Redefining the Hero. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988.
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.
Gibson, Donald B. The Red Badge of Courage: Redefining the Hero. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988.
Gibson, Donald B. The Red Badge of Courage: Redefining the Hero. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988.
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.
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.
Vol. 12. What is the difference between a '' and a ''? Detroit: Gale, 2001.
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.