The Red Badge Of Courage By Stephen Crane

      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.

“He suddenly lost concern for himself, and forgot to look at a menacing fate. He became not a man but a member.” (Crane, Chapter 5) “The Red Badge of Courage” written by Stephen Crane is a story taking place during the Civil War. It is about a young new recruit of the Union Army named Henry Fleming. He flees from battle, but as he feels really shameful he returns to his regiment. There are many themes in the story, as Henry longs for courage and man hood, but along the way he learns self preservation.

"He became not a man but a member. He felt that something of which he was a part -a regiment, an army, a cause, or a country -was in a crisis. He was welded into a common personality which was dominated by a single desire." (Crane ) The Red Badge of Courage is written by Stephen Crane. It takes place during the Civil War. Some readers think Henry is a Coward while other think he is a hero. Henry shows heroic traits when he ends up fighting, grabs the flag, and stays with 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.

In the Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, Henry has a conflict of individual vs. self as he struggles to mature at first when confronted with the realities of war. We see Henry be mesmerized by the glories of being a soldier but he does not truly understand what it means to be a soldier fighting in a conflict such as the Civil War. He matures and develops throughout his exposure to warfare and understands what it means to be a warrior. This is the central point in understanding why he fights with the other soldiers the first battle, yet he flees when the second battle ensues.

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.

“He wished that he, too, has a wound, a red badge of courage.” (Crane, 40). The book The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane is about a 16 year old soldier named Henry Fleming, fighting in the the civil war. A union soldier fighting for the north, he is a hero in the story because even though he made some wrong decisions earlier in the war, by the end of the book he was a brave and independent young man. Henry was a hero in the story The Red Badge of Courage because he makes it through battle and does not give up, he grabs the flag when it is about to fall, and matures very quickly while in battle.

The Red Badge of Courage is a quintessential story about a young man becoming an adult. Though Henry's Mother believes he does not have the makings of a soldier. This doubt, that his Mother has, is a driving force in Henry's growth as a man. Henry is faced with daunting terrors and opposition, that at some points send him into despair. Henry, although he may not know it, is actually a very strong individual.

The main character among others in The Red Badge of Courage would have to be Henry, or the youth, as he is nicknamed in the book. Henry changes drastically throughout the plot, going from a scared coward to a heroic man. This is shown in the lines, “The youth ran like a mad man to reach the woods before a bullet a bullet could discover him.” Along with the line, “He too, threw down his gun and fled. There was no shame in his face. He ran like a rabbit.” These lines show Henry’s fearfulness by running from conflict when he was in battle with his regiment. It is not until the end when Henry becomes a hero to all. This is shown in the line, “He felt a quiet manhood nonassertive but of sturdy and strong blood. He knew that he would no more quail before his guides whenever they should point.” This quote describes Henry finding his courage and that he is no longer a coward.

Written by Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage is a novel filled with irony. This story is written in the point of view of the main character, Henry Fleming, and tells about his maturation through the war. Including the title, from the beginning to the end of the book there is irony present. The use of irony by Crane helps create a lot of discussion for critics. Henry’s internal debate is a main source of irony in this novel. Also, his fantasy of how he thought war was going to be and how it turned out is ironic.

Your deeds are your monuments. The things we do determine our labels and define us in other people’s memories. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane follows the story of Henry in the midst of the Civil War. Henry’s idea of a hero is based on how others view a person; however, throughout the novel, he realizes that becoming a hero is an internal struggle.

In the beginning of Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, Henry Fleming or the “youthful private” is a farm-boy who has left the farm against his mother’s best wishes to enlist in the Union army. The novella begins after Henry has enlisted and joined with the 304th New York regiment encamped across a river in Virginia from the enemy. The date is May 1863, two years after the Civil War has already begun, and the scene is set for the upcoming Battle of Chancellorsville. Through the course of the weeks leading to Henry’s first battle, Henry is brought to question his beliefs and learn his place within his own regiment. Through the use of naturalism, irony, and the literary point of view, Crane grants the reader a look into the harsh realism

Another difference between the two stories is the way the soldiers lived while at war. In The Red Badge of Courage, the conditions were suitable and the men got good amounts of food. Crane says, “The regiment was fed and caressed at station after station…there was a lavish expenditure of bread and cold meats, coffee, and pickles and cheese.” They

The Red Badge of Courage is a story of self-discovery. The novel is set during the American Civil War, on multiple battlefields. Henry Fleming is a young soldier fighting for the Union. He first joined the army because he dreams of the glories of battle and performing heroic deeds in battle. Although Henry wishes to be a brave soldier, when in battle, his survival instincts take over, and he begins debating fight or flight. His desire to become a soldier and his instinct to survive introduces the main plot and conflict of the story: During a battle, he runs away. This causes him to see the contradiction in himself and it becomes an emotional conflict for him to solve out the contradiction. Because he is so hung up on the image of the war hero, even though he wasn’t shot at, but hit by a fellow soldier, he lies to his comrades that the wound was a bullet wound. He’s lied once to them about fighting bravely in battle when in actuality he ran away, and he lied again telling them that the head would which he actually got from another soldier was a bullet wound. The climax of the plot occurs when Henry redeems himself at another major battle by fighting bravely and taking up the Union flag when the flag bearer is wounded. He ignores his fears and faces the battle like the hero he’s dreamed of and he overcomes his survival instinct. The resolution happens after the battle is over and Henry survives. He reflects on the decisions he’s made and sees how much he’d

Henry overcomes his concerns of the unknown, but he still lacks courage to talk to the commanders and the leaders of the regiment, which shows his cowardice. Henry has this lack of courage because he felt ashamed. Henry viewed his shame and lack of courage as a burden on other soldiers in the regiment. He felt that the soldiers who had a wound were fulfilled, and he envied him because they had "a red badge of courage" (Crane84) the courage that he lacked. His lack of "a red badge of courage" (Crane84) was short lived when he was shot. Jim Conklin, a man of Henry's first regiment, is