The Red Badge Of Courage Henry Character Analysis

Crane defines courage as "a temporary but sublime absence of selflessness," I think Henry experienced a temporary but not sublime absence of consciousness. In battle I think he was acting more like a machine than himself. "Henry ran like a madman to reach the woods before a bullet could discover him...In his haste his eyes almost closed, and the scene was a wild blur...pulsating saliva stood at the corners of his mouth."(Crane Ch. 20) He was acting out of fear, thus he wasn't truly himself in his actions. The one main reason Henry fled in the beginning is because he feared death. When you act out of fear you become more mechanical in your actions. A hero doesn't flee from battle and try to rationalize their actions by lying to

“He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless. Whatever he had learned of himself was here of no avail. He was an unknown quantity. He saw that he would again be obliged to experiment as he had in early youth. He must accumulate information of himself, and meanwhile he resolved to remain close upon his guard lest those qualities of which he knew nothing should everlastingly disgrace him.” (Crane, Chapter 1) From this quote the reader can tell that Henry is fearful about whether he has the courage to fight in a battle. Henry assumes that war is only for creating heroes and that they are granted prestige in society. When he recalled his mothers advice, he realizes that it isn’t about making a name for himself, but meeting his responsibility honestly even if he has to sacrifice his own life.

Initially, Henry fears that he will run like a coward when faced with his first battle. He’s been in the army for a while now but hasn’t seen any action yet. Talking with the other men, he tries to get them to admit that they are scared as well. No one wants to say as much; they all seem perfect examples of fearless men, which leaves Henry feeling even worse about his own apprehension. Shortly before his first battle, he sees his first dead body, a gruesome corpse.

Henry shows heroic traits fighting in the war. At the beginning of the story Henry runs to the woods, by the end of the book Henry fights and it turns out he actually likes fighting. This quote shows heroic traits by showing Henry actually fought. He like fighting and should not have ran the first time. Henry almost regrets running the first time.“He had fought like a pagan who defends his religion. Regarding it, he saw that it was fine, wild, and, in some ways, easy.” (Cane ) This quote proves that when Henry started fighting he liked and and he fought like a beast. This is not the only instance in which Henry shows heroic qualities.

As Henry is trying to find ways to justify running from the battle, he happens to overhear a few men talking about the very same battle. His side had won, and Henry is faced with the harsh truth, Henry ran out of fear. Not because he though that the soldiers fighting alongside him would lose, but because he was afraid only for his own life. As he is thinking about all of this, Henry finally comes across other soldiers. As he inspects them more closely however, he notices that they are all badly wounded. Still trying to escape the battle, he joins

Moving closer to the battle, Henry, the rookie private with a lack of self-confidence and courage, starts thinking if he should run away from a battle or fight in the battle. With a lack of war experience, he feels insecure going to battle and does not know what to do. He starts to ask his fellow soldiers on their thoughts and opinions about running away from a battle as he felt cowardliness of doing so. He also asked one

First, Henry might have been scared. He saw what happened in the first battle and it affected him in a way it didn't the others. This was the first time he fought in a war or battle with other men. He made friends with some of the soldiers in his regiment. If he stuck

Henry fights in his first battle: Henry began to have second thoughts about fighting in the war as his battalion got closer to their first battle. “ He thought that he must break from the ranks and harangue his comrades.” 1.

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.

But in the second battle Henry flees from his comrades while they held the line as the rebels tried to push them out. The regiment ended up being the victors of the second battle too. But Henry was worried about what the other soldiers would say to him since he ran away from the battle. I believe Henry was always afraid of battle even before it started and when the enemy came sprinting towards him he was shocked and started to flee.

When the men regroup for the second attack, many of the Union soldiers around henry begin to run away. Henry gives into the pressure and joins in the retreat, he wasn’t prepared for the horror that war brings. As he’s running, he seems to observe everyone else around him. He sees his captain lying stretched on the ground, dead, the babbling man was grazed by a shot to the head, and another man grunted as he was struck in the stomach, along with many others that just started dropping to the ground. As Henry ran, he feared for his life that he was going to be struck in the back, but he continued running. The thought of self-preservation seemed more important to him than fighting with selflessness and bravery along with the other

Henry fights along with the other soldiers in the first battle, yet he flees from the scene when the second battle ensues. Henry had a confusing opinion about the battles being fought. He believed that the first battle was a sure fire win and that the second battle was a complicated one to win. The battles were both very different.

“The Youth,” which Henry is referred to as, dreamt of glory in battle and being a hero (Crane 2). That is the reason why Henry enlisted himself; even though he told his comrades he was forced to be in the army. His mother’s farewell speech is ironic because he thought that she would give him a tearful and long speech, but all she really said was to “Watch out, and be a good boy” (4). She does not want Henry to be a hero even though that is what he went to war for. She told Henry that she will be fine if he does not return home. Henry tries to pull off being a confident and good soldier, while in the reality he is very nervous about what will happen in battle. Throughout the novel, he questions his courage and if he would run from battle. At an early battle, Henry continuously fires at the enemy line and feels like he is a courageous soldier. However, soon after this battle, another one erupts and Henry runs from it. This is

He described that he couldn’t escape even if he wanted to. Through this analogy, the reader can see that Henry is reducing the soldiers to unthinking, unfeeling machines, performing their duty without taking into account the threat of injury or death. As he looks around at the faces of the rest of the soldiers in his regiment, he notices their focused commitment to the firing of their rifles. He wonders if he is the only one faced with questions of morality. While the regiment began to advance, Henry was shocked to receive a packet of letters from Wilson, who feared he would die in battle. After the battle, he is glad that he made it through the first day. He begins to lose the romantic vision of war by seeing the realities, but he starts lying to himself about who is really is.

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