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Naturalism In The Red Badge Of Courage

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Naturalism in the Red Badge of Courage
The Red Badge of Courage is a novel, published in 1895, centered on the unfiltered feelings and experiences of Henry, the protagonist, whose childhood was filled with romanticized ideas of war. The young farmer is sent into The Civil War idolizing the glory of being a warrior but only meets the harsh reality of battle. Although Stephen Crane, the author of this novel, was born on November 1, 1871, years after the Civil War, his novel shocked the majority of readers because of how realistic his novel illustrates war. Crane was obsessed with the idea of war and educated himself on it when he moved to New York City to achieve his dreams of a literary career. In New York he read many journals and met with …show more content…

Henry enlists with the idea that he is going to be joining a romantic cause for glory and valor: “He had burned several times to enlist. Tales of great movements shook the land. They might not be distinctly Homeric, but there seemed to be much glory in them” (Crane 2). As time passes in the camp, however, he begins to accept that the valor and glory of the past no longer exist. An issue emerges when Henry is confronted with the possibility of war. He begins to doubt whether he would actually stand his ground in battle. He wonders if the others share the same self-doubt but regains a bit of confidence when Jim Conklin, also called the Tall Soldier, tells him that under circumstances that he may in fact flee from the battle if necessary. During the first battle, Henry stands and fights, but as the second wave of Confederate soldiers charge, he flees once he sees some of his comrades run. Later on, he constantly attempts to assure himself that his actions were valid and were for the best of the army.
He had fled, he told himself, because annihilation approached. He had done a good part in saving himself, who was a little piece of the army. He had considered the time, he said, to be one in which it was the duty of every little piece to rescue itself if possible. Later the officers could fit the little pieces together again (Crane

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