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Theme of the red badge of courage
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The red badge of courage stephen crane essay
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The Effects of War on a Union Soldier in The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane traces the effects of war on a Union soldier, Henry Fleming, from his dreams of soldiering to his actual enlistment. The novel also takes one through several battles of the Civil War. Henry Fleming was not happy with his boring life on the farm. He wants to become a hero in war and have girls loving him for his glorious achievements in battle. He would also like to prove that he is a man and can take care of himself.
Henry knows his mother would not like to see him go to war, but it is his decision to make. He dreams of the existing battles of war and the thrill of fighting glorious battles. He does not want to stay on the farm with nothing to do, so he makes the final decision to enlist. After enlisting he finds himself just sitting around with nothing to do. Henry manages to make friends with two other soldiers, John Wilson and Jim Conklin. Wilson is as exited about going to war as Henry, while Jim is confident about the success of the new regiment.
Henry starts to realize after a few days of marching, that their regiment is just wandering aimlessly, going in circles, like a vast blue demonstration. They kept marching on without purpose, direction, or fighting. "The cold passed reluctantly from earth, and retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors." Crane uses imagery in this passage of spring at the beginning of the novel to show that the army is slowly coming together. Wartime activities are resuming after its long winter rest, just as nature is awakened to a new life after its long winter dormancy. Through time Henry started to think about the battles in a different way, a more close and experienced way. He starts to become afraid that he might run from battle when duty calls. Henry felt like a servant, doing whatever his superiors told him.
When the regiment finally discovers a battle-taking place, Jim gives Henry a little packet in a yellow envelope, telling Henry that this will be his first and last battle.
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.
Even though Henry never expressed his fears to Tom Wilson or Jim Conklin. the audience could tell by the expressions on his face that he was scared. While he was writing a letter to his parents he wrote about how he is going to fight for the first time and he wants to make the proud. After Henry runs away from the first battle. He feels embarrassed because he didn't have a wound.
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:
We learn that when Henry comes home from the war, he is suffering from PTSD. "It was at least three years before Henry came home. By then I guess the whole war was solved in the governments mind, but for him it would keep on going" (444). PTSD changes a person, and it doesn 't always stem from war. Henry came back a completely different person. He was quiet, and he was mean. He could never sit still, unless he was posted in front of the color TV. But even then, he was uneasy, "But it was the kind of stillness that you see in a rabbit when it freezes and before it will bolt"
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.
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
In The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane explores the theme of courage and heroism in depth. He develops these themes through the main character, Henry Fleming. Henry is a naïve young man faced with the harsh realities of war, in this book, some argue that Henry is transformed into a heroic "quiet manhood" while others see Henry as the same young man who ran from battle in the beginning of the book. I think Henry doesn't change, his heroic status acquired at the end of the book isn't truly him, instead he merely is motivated by fear of dying and being rejected by his fellow soldiers.
“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.
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.
In the Historical fiction, “The Red Badge of Courage”, written by Stephen Crane; a young man try’s to find courage in himself in the time of war. After watching your commander die in war, would you stay and fight or return home and be a coward? Enlisting Himself into war Henry, to be more than the common man to prove worthyness and bravery. With the sergeant dead will Henry lead his men to victory, or withdraw his men in war. Not being the only are faced with the decision Jim and Wilson Henry’s platoons will have the same decision.
The Transformation of Henry Fleming in The Red Badge of Courage 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. Among the death and repulsion of war, there exists a single refuge for the warrior--his brethren.
The Story “A Red Badge of Courage” is set at the time of the Civil War in America. Young Henry Fleming has always wanted to enlist, but his mother has warned him, and would state a hundred ways on why he would be more helpful on his family’s farm than on the field of battle for his country. When Henry makes the executive decision to enlist, his mother is torn. He wears his blue uniform proudly and has a lot of confidence until he arrives at the battlefield.
When Henry decides he wants to join the war, he thinks it will be this great epic event. He seeks honor and glory, which in my opinion cannot be found on a battlefield. He is known as the youth or the quiet soldier because he doesn’t talk to much. When the first battle starts Henry runs out of fear making him a disereter. This goes to show that Henry is very young and may not
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.
His busy mind had drawn for him large pictures extravagant in color, lurid with breathless deeds (Crane, Red badge of courage, 1957).” The romance of war leads Henry to enlist in the first place, as it did many soldiers during the Civil War. The supposed glory that would be found in battle was a lure to many young men who thought it was a way to prove their