The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

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Recommended: The similarities and differences between realism and naturalism

Many of Stephen Crane’s passions in life strongly influenced his writing of The Red Badge of Courage, most predominately his obsession with war. The Red Badge of Courage, was Crane’s first book about war and arguably is most successful book. His book consisted of so many different styles of writing scholars did not know how to classify it. These styles of writing include realism, naturalism, symbolism, and impressionism. In fact many Civil War Veterans though Crane had fought in the Civil war himself. However Crane was not born until a few years after the war ended. This speaks to the prestige of the realism in Crane’s book.

Before Crane got his start as a writer he was born in Newark, New Jersey on November 1, 1871 to Mary Helen Crane and Reverend Doctor Jonathan Townley Crane. Before Crane published his first novel Maggie: A Girl of The Streets in 1893, he flunked out of both Lafayette College, and Syracuse University. Despite flunking out of school by the time Crane died in 1900 when he was twenty-eight he has written six novels, around a hundred short stories, two books of poems, and voluminous journalism and war correspondence (GCE). Not only did Crane’s writing focus on war, his life revolved around his fascination of war. On multiple occasions Crane went to various countries to witness the Spanish-American War, Greco-Turkish conflict, and an insurrection in Cuba. After her during many of trips he wrote about the war in vivid realism like the realism found in The Red Badge of Courage. Similarly to Crane writers of the 1890s were writing with realism too and among these writers Crane was one of the most influential (EWB). Through these methods of writing Crane examines the reaction of the main character in extreme situat...

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... Encyclopedia of American Literature. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 2009. 348-352. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. New York: Penguin, 2005. Print.

Toler, Pamela. “The Red Badge of Courage.” The Literature of War. Ed. Thomas Riggs. Vol. 2: Experiences. Detroit: St. James Press, 2012. 80-82. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

“The Red Badge of Courage.” Literary Themes for Students: War and Peace. Ed. Anne Marie Hacht. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 2006. 439-450. Literary Themes for Students. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

“The Red Badge of Courage.” Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 1998. 253-275. Gale Power Search. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.
“Stephen Crane.” Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

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