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The Red Badge Of Courage Analysis Essay

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The Red Badge of Courage Book Analysis
1. The title of the novel is The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. It is a fictional historic war novel.
2. The Red Badge of Courage is set during the Civil War. The novel opens with the protagonist, Henry Fleming, listening to the various arguments over a rumor that someone has spread about the regiment going into battle the following day. During the arguments, Henry remembers why he enlisted in the army, despite his mother’s protests. After remembering the reasons why he joined the army, Henry wavers in his belief that he will stay and fight in the battle. His friend, Jim Conklin, makes him feel better by telling Fleming that if his friends ran, he would run too. The next day, the rumor from before was proven to be false, and the soldiers are instructed to move to help reinforce other troops. After …show more content…

A target of satire in the novel is the idea that war is a glorious place where you can earn respect and attention. Throughout the novel, Henry thinks repeatedly about how his actions and those of the other soldiers will appear as news headlines “of a decisive victory” (Crane 623). Henry finds out that war is not a place where you can gain recognition and honor, but rather a place of blood, death, and horror. A theme of the novel is that when confronted with a deadly threat, one will save his own life instead of someone else’s. This theme is most strongly shown with the thoughts and actions of Henry Fleming. He runs away from his second battle, he reassures himself by targeting a squirrel, and he leaves a dying man in the woods alone, after the man questions his fake wound, which he uses to lie about participating in a battle. The final theme of the novel is how little the rest of the planet cares about man. This theme is shown through the rotting corpse and nature. In multiple situations in the novel, nature obstructs man’s way instead of letting man through. These are the key themes and criticism of the

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