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stephen crane role in realism
literary realism stephen crane
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Chapter 1 Analysis:
Stephen Crane begins a new course of realism in The Red Badge of Courage. Many critics point to him as one of the first American authors of a modern style, and The Red Badge as a fine example of this. The novel is built on a coming-of-age theme, and many of its descriptive elements, such as its concentration on nature and character's actions, are in the realist style, most popularized in America by William Dean Howells and Frank Norris. However, Crane's style in this book has some slight differences from earlier styles. The narrator does not name the characters. In the first chapter, we discover the names of Henry and Jim only through their dialogue with other characters. The narrator only refers to them by descriptors‹"the
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However, he sees the effects of these red badges in an upfront way when confronted with the spectral figure of Jim Conklin. The tall soldier has been wounded twice. The badges he carries prevent him from walking and thinking clearly.
Furthermore as they walk together, the gray fear and unknown is still with Jim, despite his wounds. His face turns gray as he tells Henry that he fears being trampled to death by the speeding artillery carts. This shows that the phantoms of battle and death, the gray unknown, do not escape even those who have a red badge of courage.
Henry, though he finally wants to act for the first time since the battle, cannot do anything. Jim will not let him even touch him. Besides, death is so close for Jim that there is nothing the youth can do. This frustration and anger at seeing his friend die makes Henry weep so much, that he cannot talk. Henry's words and thoughts are finally halted. He is no longer thinking now. Remember that he was still interpreting the images he saw as the fled from battle; now, he can do little but
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He takes care of Henry and his wound, trying to make him comfortable, complimenting his toughness, making sure he gets to sleep. There is little bragging about the loud soldier's actions. He does them, it seems, out of his joy to see Henry.
The imagery of the chapter suggests that he also may do this out of weariness for battle himself. Pictures of exhausted, sleeping soldiers dominate this chapter. While we do not know what the regiment has gone through exactly, all the men are asleep by the time Henry arrives. The youth has had a longer day than the rest of the soldiers. Perhaps this is driving Wilson's desire to take care of Henry‹he is a member of their regiment, of their group, who was given up for dead. Now that he has returned, he needs a little extra
Stephen Crane firmly cemented himself in the canon of American Romanticism with the success of works such as The Red Badge of Courage and "The Blue Hotel." His writing served to probe the fundamental depths of the genre while enumerating on the themes vital to the movement's aesthetic. Such topics as heartfelt reverence for the beauty and ferocity of nature, the general exaltation of emotion over reason and senses over intellect, self-examination of personality and its moods and mental possibilities, a preoccupation with genius and the heroic archetype in general, a focus on passions and inner struggles, and an emphasis on imagination as a gateway to transcendence, as well as a predilection for the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, and folk culture are all characteristic of his stories.
The main character of this book is Henry Fleming, mostly referred to as The Youth or Youth. The Youth has dark, curly brown hair also; he is a young teenager and is average height when compared to the Tall Soldier. Henry is insecure because he is going through a difficult stage between being a "man" and being a "boy". Henry can't wait to get to war when he signs up but during the book Henry learns that war has a lot of affects on people emotionally and physically. Henry's flaw is that he is afraid of making himself look bad and he is worried that he is going to be a coward and run away from battle. Henry really wants to be a "man" and be courageous. I once heard a swim coach give an extremely good definition of courage. He said "To me courage is not to be unafraid but it is to be afraid but one does it anyways and doesn't worry about being afraid. I think Henry thought of courageous as fearless and that is also part of his flaw.
In the Red Badge of Courage, the protagonist Henry, is a young boy who yearns to be a Great War hero, even though he has never experienced war himself. Anxious for battle, Henry wonders if he truly is courageous, and stories of soldiers running make him uncomfortable. He struggles with his fantasies of courage and glory, and the truth that he is about to experience. He ends up running away in his second battle.
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.
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 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.
War forces young soldiers to grow up quickly. In Stephen Crane’s Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage, Henry Fleming is no exception. He is faced with the hard reality of war and this forces him to readjust his romantic beliefs about war. Through the novel, the reader can trace the growth and development of Henry through these four stages: (1) romanticizing war and the heroic role each soldier plays, (2) facing the realities of war, (3) lying to himself to maintain his self-importance, and (4) realistic awareness of his abilities and place in life. Through Henry’s experiences in his path to self-discovery, he is strongly affected by events that help shape his ideology of war, death, courage, and manhood. The romantic ideologies will be replaced with a more realistic representation.
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.
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.
This was the turning point for Henry. He started questioning himself and thought about running away. And he did. During his first battle, Henry became scared, confused, and goes into a state of mind where he saw his side losing. He got up and started to run like a "proverbial chicken", who had lost the direction of safety. While running, Henry analyzed himself. He thought of himself as a coward, running away, but he made himself feel better by thinking this is a way of saving himself for a later battle.
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, one of the most significant and renowned books in American literature, defies outright classification, showing traits of both the realist and naturalist movements. It is a classic, however, precisely because it does so without sacrificing unity or poignancy. The Red Badge of Courage belongs unequivocally to the naturalist genre, but realism is also present and used to great effect. The conflict between these styles mirrors the bloody clash of the war described in the book – and the eternal struggle between good and evil in human nature.
During the Civil War, injuries caused lots of damage on soldiers and their bodies. Usually, when a soldier gets severely injured, amputation was the best option. A common phrase, “Bite the Bullet”, became very prevalent upon the Civil War culture. The phrase literally meant during the amputation process, the surgeon gave an actual bullet to the soldier to bite on while his limb was being removed (Phrases). In the beginning of the novel, Henry constantly contemplated running when the battle started, or staying to fight for victory. Henry did not show any signs of courage until he steeped on the battlefield for the second time and began to fight. Injuries inflicted on Henry and his comrades drew out a lot of courage on themselves along with the rest army division. “At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, ...
Bloom, Harold, ed. Modern Critical Interpretations: Stephan Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. New Yourk: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
...ern Critical Interpretations: Stephan Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. New Yourk: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
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.