The Red Badge Of Courage Analysis

The Red Badge of Courage is a war novel written to exemplify the experiences and emotions of a young soldier in the American Civil War. The novel details the qualities of maturity and manhood in a gripping tale of Private Henry Fleming of the Union Army. The author, Stephen Crane wishes to relate the American public to the emotional and psychological challenges endured by countless men in the Civil War.

In The Red Badge of Courage, Henry shows immaturity by enlisting in the army and being naïve about the war. Henry explains that since he was young, he dreamed about the war of the bloody battles that the soldiers fought in. He thinks fighting in a war will make him a hero and achieve glory. He enlisted in the army, although his mother opposed the decision. However, when he makes it to the camp, he had to wait many weeks in the camps until he was called up to battle, and he started to doubt his place in the army.

War can force young soldiers to grow up quickly. In The Red Badge of Courage, Henry Fleming is no exception. He enters the war with romanticized ideas of what war is like, and leaves with those ideas very much changed.

The Novel, The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane, is about a Union Regiment during the civil war that is stationed along a riverbank. Henry Flemming is a newcomer who is bothered about his bravery because there is a rumor the regiment is going to go to battle. The only reason Henry was drawn to enlist was because he wanted to become a war hero. The main conflict is internal. When Henry has to go into battle and risk his life, he realizes that there is no turning back, and he could not run if he tried. The climax occurs when he is enraged by another soldier, Jim Conklin, and takes out his anger on the confederates, impressing the lieutenant. Additionally, Wilson, his friend, and him hear another lieutenant say that the 304th regiment fights like “mule drivers.” The two friends set out to disprove his claim. For example, when the regiment’s color bearer dies, Henry assumes his duties. After continuing to face more adversity from the lieutenants, they work harder and harder to become the best in the regiment. The resolution occurs when Henry finally realizes joining the war is not about reputation or becoming a hero, it is about fighting for a cause that is worth fighting for. At the end of the novel, Flemming reflects on the war and on how he learned the meaning of true courage. (251 Words)

Henry, the main character from, "The Red Badge of Courage" by Stephan Crane, showed many different emotions and reactions to battle. The essay will show how nature and human life are similar. In the same sense that the emotions that Henry portrayed fear and bravery in numerous occasions throughout the story; in the end his youthfulness got the best of him. In the first battle Henry stayed with his unit. However, in the second battle, he ran away from the battle. From these two extremely different reactions, it can be determined that Henry was going through internal battles as well as external battles.

The Red Badge of Courage is a story of humility and courage. The setting is during the Civil War with the 304th Regiment. Henry Fleming, the story’s main protagonist has many questions that need to be answered. He questions if he would run away when in the midst of a battle. Henry joined the regiment in hopes of obtaining personal glory. After false rumor after false rumor of moving towards the battle, the 304th regiment loses hope of experiencing battle. The main plot and conflict is introduced when Henry encounters his first battle: the struggle to run for his life or stay and fight until death. During his first battle, fear grips him, but he cannot flee because he is boxed in both left and right. After they push the confederate soldiers back, they are attacked soon yet again and this time Henry runs for it. When he finally stops, he tries to justify his actions by stating that the soldiers are stupid for fighting a lost battle. He comes across a group of soldiers with wounds and envies their “red badge of courage”. After hearing how generals and higher ranked officials talk about his regiment, he becomes enraged, furious. This is the turning point of the story, because he makes something of himself from then on. Henry Fleming chooses to redeem himself in battle by becoming one of the best in the 304th regiment. The climax of the novel

The Red Badge of Courage is about finding the strength within oneself to keep one’s courage and bravery. Henry Fleming recently joined the 304th regiment during the Civil War because he was drawn to the glory of military conflict, but doubts his courage to fight and risk his life when a tall soldier named Jim Conklin spreads a rumor that the army will march soon. As the regiment marches for days and the soldiers become weary, they finally come across the enemies (Confederates) and attack. Although Henry wants to be brave, he internally fights his fear of war and death, and he runs off which becomes the main conflict. When he returns to fight, he discovered that the Union army defeats the Confederates. This gained him confidence, but as the

Explore the ways in which Stephen Crane presents armies, as bodies of men stationary, moving and fighting. Judging by his description of armies, do you think this is an anti-war novel?

A way to resolve the protagonist Henry Fleming conflict is if he wouldn’t have enlisted for the Union Army he would not be worrying about fighting on the war also he wouldn’t have to worry of getting killed. If he did not enlisted he would have never faced his own fear and overcome it. He went through a rough path and struggles, but he had to do whatever it takes so he could have been name as the red badge courage. With all his hard work at the end he got the red badge of courage and also he is one of the bravest soldier in his region.

The Red Badge of Courage shows the real nature of war and specifically how most of Americans don’t understand what goes on when a person is actually at war. Soldiers are fighting not just for their own lives, but also for all of the people that don’t have to be apart of the heinous acts that happen during war. Most do not see or hear about what goes on in the line of fire or how if feels when it’s witnessed to see another human being shot to the ground in a firefight. The Red Badge of Courage changes the way that we think about war, most are naive just like Henry had been before he enlisted. “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. He had read of marches, sieges, conflicts, and he had longed to see it all. His busy mind had drawn for him large pictures extravagant in color, lurid with breathless deeds.” (Crane 3)

In the first third of the book “The Red Badge of Courage”, an important main event that occurs is during battle, Henry runs away from the battlefield. While Henry’s division was resting, thinking they had held their enemy (Confederate Army) back, they return. One at a time, the soldiers from his regiment got up and fled from the line, and that is when Henry ran off in panic. This is significant to the plot because throughout the story, Henry is tormented that he will run away in fear during battle, and he did. Before the second battle began, Henry felt satisfied of his and his comrades’ efforts until he heard the lieutenants begin to shout again which led him to panic and lose the courage he thought he had proved because he didn’t run away

“ The Red badge of courage “ was a great book. The book introduces a boy named Henry, who is the main character in the story. He wants to enlist in the army so he can have his share of showing bravery. He ends up enlisting even though his mother told him that he was not aloud. The conflict however in this story was not Henry's mother, or the fact that he enlisted in the army without permission, but its the way he feels about his first time at war. Henry is afraid that once its time to actually fight, he'll be to afraid and run away from it.

“Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him, though many discovered it to be made of oaths and walking sticks” In support of this passage it’s taken from the last paragraph of the novel, where Henry Fleming is mentally escaping from an act of abandonment.

Have you ever had to go to war and be afraid the whole time everyone was going to call you a coward? In The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane Henry Fleming is an average twenty-year old man who decides to go into the army during the Civil War. After months of training and waiting, his regiment gets called to the battlefield. It then hits Henry that he is actually going to be in war and along with war, there is death. Throughout the novel Henry struggles with internal conflicts about having enough strength to fight for his country. In the novel The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane Henry’s character changes from worried to determined and finally to brave.

The young soldier, Henry in the ‘Red Badge of Courage’ experiences many emotional conflicts and challenges as he participates and confronts the enemy in his first true battle while running scared and turning his back in the second. I would argue Henry’s reactions mirrored the physiological response of ‘fight or flight’ where the fight described his encounters in his first battle while flight described his reactions in the second battle. ( www.wikipedia.org ). The ‘fight’ mirrors some of the themes as described in my readings, such as ‘courage,’ ‘youth,’ ‘friendship,’ the opinions of others and ‘flight’ mirrors other themes such as ‘Self Preservation,’ ‘Brutality of War’ and ‘Maturity.’ (TRBOC, Theme. Lesson 2, Pgs. 2-5). What’s interesting to note is Henry’s conscience is likely the single biggest factor in his marked personality change from one extreme to the other. I will now elaborate on my fight or flight argument.