A Battle for Adulthood in Red Badge of Courage
Throughout the novel, The Red Badge of Courage, written by Stephen Crane, a theme is portrayed within a battle that takes place during the Civil War. It is that each person must find the courage to win his or her won battle for maturity or adulthood. A soldier, who is also the main character, Henry Fleming, exemplifies this theme.
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.
Henry starts to realize that there are no heroes and that there are no individuals: “He had grown to regard himself merely as a part of a vast blue demonstration.” Therefore he is beginning to fight the battle within himself into adulthood. Henry looses some of his selfishness and gains concern for others, another stepping stone: “He felt the subtle battle brotherhood more potent even than the cause for which he was fighting.” Henry deserts a dying soldier and runs from a battle, but recognizes that running away was wrong. It isn’t a mature action, but he is mature to realize the magnitude of running.
With the knowledge of his past mistakes, Henry goes into battle without thinking about the past and fights heroically. After a general makes a derogatory remark about Henry and his comrades, it reveals Henry’s change of attitude. He accepts the comment without rebellion and fights with courage. Because of the success of fighting bravely, Henry has the self-esteem to deal with his mistakes as an adult. As a mature person he can learn from his mistakes.
The important conflict in The Red Badge of Courage is Henry Fleming's. fear about how he will perform in his first battle. There were three people. who expressed their ideas about their fears before the first skirmish. They Henry Fleming, Tom Wilson, and Jim Conklin.
War changes a person in ways that can never be imagined. Living in a war as well as fighting in one is not an experience witnessed in everyday life. Seeing people die every time and everywhere you go can be seen as an unpleasant experience for any individual such as Henry. The experiences that Henry had embraced during the Vietnam War have caused him to become an enraged and paranoid being after the war. It has shaped him to become this individual of anxiety and with no emotions. The narrator says:
Henry's flaws were very similar to those of Pip and the Greek heroes. Arrogance was a flaw that many Greek mortal heroes, especially Odysseus and Oedipus, had. When Henry realized that none of his fellow soldiers were aware that he had run from the first battle, he regained his self-pride and self-confidence. Before long, he had convinced himself that he was "chosen of the gods and doomed to greatness." At first, Pip believed that status and wealth determined the "goodness" of a person. Henry had similar illusions. He believed that a war hero was a person who could manage to escape every tight situation he got into, and also a godly figure people looked up to and were fascinated by. His other illusions were that the only the best could survive against the hideous "dragons" of war, and that the enemy was a machine that never tired or lost will to fight.
The first time Henry's flaw gets him in trouble is in chapter 10 and when he gets his chance to go into battle he flees. He at first thinks the war is boring but he soon learns that war is very frightening. When Henry flees he also shows insecurity when he tries to make up an excuse for why he wasn't with the rest of the regiment. Henry thinks very poorly of himself at this point and really anyone would run from a war, I don't think he was ready.
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
Henry is somewhat naïve, he dreams of glory, but doesn't think much of the duty that follows. Rather than a sense of patriotism, it is clear to the reader that Henry goals seem a little different, he wants praise and adulation. "On the way to Washington, the regiment was fed and caressed for station after station until the youth beloved
At the beginning of the novel Henry is disappointed with war; he had far greater expectations of war. He wants one thing out of this experience, Glory, and he would go to any extreme to fulfill it. In battle Henry acts impulsively and is easily manipulated, he flees from battle at the sight of others running. When he realizes his cowardice, he rationalizes without end why he ran. He justifies that nature also flees at the sight of fear when he scares a squirrel to runoff.
At the beginning, Henry Fleming has an undeveloped identity because his inexperience limits his understanding of heroism, manhood, and courage. For example, on the way to war, “The regiment was fed and caressed at station after station until the youth [Henry] had believed that he must be a hero” (Crane 13). Since he has yet to fight in war, Henry believes a hero is defined by what others think of him and not what he actually does. The most heroic thing he has done so far is enlist, but even that was with ulterior motives; he assumes fighting in the war will bring him glory, yet another object of others’ opinions. At this point, what he thinks of himself is much less important than how the public perceives him. As a result of not understanding
Frederick Henry grew up in America and in his early twenties, he decided to go to Europe and fight in the Italian army. Henry’s decision in the first place, showed courage and bravery. Fighting for another country over making a living in your own goes above and beyond what is remotely asked for. Even in my wildest dreams, I would probably not even think about fighting for my own country, let alone a foreign country. Times were tough, especially when the start of the winter came. With that winter came “permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end and only seven thousand died of it in the army.” (4) In the army, people die, and it is not the nicest place. Frederick Henry chose to enter this world and this portrays bravery.
Through high moral character Henry established credibility with the audience through creating a setting that aroused feelings in the people at the convention in order to convince them they had to fight for more than just peace. The goal Henry had when he spoke about war was to be honest with the crowd and point out that they needed to do something now or they would loose not just what he loved, but what they also loved. Henry said “If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending...and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight!”. In this quote the tactic of ethics is apparent in that Henry wanted to achieve a personal level of connection with the audience and establish his credibility. By relating losing the war it also meant the lose of their feelings of comfort and contentm...
In the first part of the novel, Henry is a youth that is very inexperienced. His motives were impure. He was a very selfish and self-serving character. He enters the war not for the basis of serving his country, but for the attainment of glory and prestige. Henry wants to be a hero. This represents the natural human characteristic of selfishness. Humans have a want and a need to satisfy themselves. This was Henry's main motive throughout the first part of the novel. On more than one occasion Henry is resolved to that natural selfishness of human beings. After Henry realizes that the attainment of glory and heroism has a price on it. That price is by wounds or worse yet, death. Henry then becomes self-serving in the fact that he wants to survive for himself, not the Union army. There is many a time when Henry wants to justify his natural fear of death. He is at a point where he is questioning deserting the battle; in order to justify this, he asks Jim, the tall soldier, if he would run. Jim declared that he'd thought about it. Surely, thought Henry, if his companion ran, it would be alright if he himself ran. During the battle, when Henry actually did take flight, he justified this selfish deed—selfish in the fact that it did not help his regiment hold the Rebs—by natural instinct. He proclaimed to himself that if a squirrel took flight when a rock was thrown at it, it was alright that he ran when his life was on the line.
‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more’, one of the most celebrated openings to, arguably, the most famous passage within the entire Henry V Shakespeare play. Through this opening we can tell that Henry is a character of perseverance and fortitude as he drives his troops into war. Shakespeare’s presentation of Henry is without doubt one of a hero and protagonist as he is presented as a man with a degree of intelligence and allure with motives that are not focused on a lust for power, like most kings, but to his obligations and responsibilities as an exalted rank. It is also apparent from Henry’s unquestionably rousing speeches that Shakespeare intends for us to view Henry as a hero, or, at the very least, as an estimable king.
a reason, to try and change the idea of the class system in his time.
"hero" in the eyes of the masses by enlisting in the army. Henry's goal of
The state of affairs and the grim reality of the war lead Henry towards an ardent desire for a peaceful life, and as a result Henry repudiates his fellow soldiers at the warfront. Henry’s desertion of the war is also related to his passionate love for Catherine. Henry’s love for Catherine is progressive and ironic. This love develops gradually in “stages”: Henry’s attempt at pretending love for Catherine towards the beginning of the novel, his gradually developing love for her, and finally, Henry’s impas... ...