Essay on The Red Badge of Courage

Henry’s confidence does not last for a long time. The realities of the battle become a reality and cause his fear and doubt to reappear. Henry goes from being happy because he was able to fight the enemy in the first battle to being anxious at the beginning of a second

Terrified, he runs from the scene, following the other soldiers who also lacked these traits. Henry views his regiment as “the subtle battle brotherhood more potent even than the cause for which they were fighting. It was a mysterious fraternity born of the smoke and danger of death”, meaning that he only fights because he’s surrounded by fighters. Henry is not showing courage or bravery in battle, he is just blindly following the other soldiers.

He uses the ethos described above to persuade his troops to fight. He does this to give them morale, which is necessary in order to fight. His aim was to lead his men into battle not to lose, but to win. He uses the men's emotions and futures as a reason to fight. Another reason is for the glory of the troop and the glory of England. These men have so much fear that all they can think of are reasons to flee. However, Henry gives the men better reasons to stay and fight. He wants his troop to give it their all and not abandon hope or the fleet. St. Crispin's Day is not a battle to dread. It will be a battle to remember for them, and for all people of England.

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.

As he is walking, a few soldiers that seems to be fleeing run into him. As Henry tries to stop them to ask what’s been happening, one of the soldiers swings at him with a rifle, opening a bloody gash on the top of his head. After a long while of waiting, a friendly soldier finds him and leads him back to camp, where a friend tends to his wound. After a few days of waiting, they come across another battle. This time Henry doesn’t flee, instead he thinks about all the people who have fought and died in the war, and decides to do the same: fight. Not only for the glory this time, but for the people he was

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.

Henry Fleming enlists as a youth with heroic fantasies of battle lingering in his mind and walks off the "place of blood and wrath" three days later a serene veteran of battle. He came from hot plowshares seeking a Homeric Iliad, timid and anxious about his potential and what others think of him. He ponders a great dilemma: will he run from battle? He is reassured after asking the tall soldier his question. His friend tells him that he would do what the rest of the regiment was doing. Henry is not an individual yet, he is a

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

When faced with adversities early into his first battle, he quickly reconsidered his views on war and courage. By running away from the face of battle, Henry “saw his vivid error, and he was afraid that it would stand before him all his life” (Cane 24.30).  This pushed him into believing that he would never be a man of courage of masculinity. This “error” of running away caused Henry to be angry at himself for mistakenly thinking the battle was over and abandoning his fellow soldiers. While away from the battle Henry discovers “that he had a scorching thirst” and “his body was calling for food” (Cane 11.21). From the struggle of war and the experience of Wilson, Henry learns to reflect upon his life and learn from his mistakes, rather than being angry at himself. This allowed Henry to be influenced by the culture around him, shaping him into acknowledging that courage was not depicted by a gunshot or a wound, but by the act of adhering to the line of duty and learning from your

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.

“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's fears take over, and his only way to achieve his self comfort again is to run away from the battle. Henry uses the forest to calm himself. The forest is where he begins to overcome his selfish ways, he reflects back on the battle and the men, and starts to believe that he can be of help to one or more of the men in the regiment. Henry eventually wins over the fear and joins with another regiment to fight against the rebels.

Henry was a courageous man, who shows grace under pressure instead of nervousness. When they were in the middle of the Italian retreat and the car was stuck, two enemy sergeants caught up to them. Henry wasn’t scared but he was brave, as he was calling them out, and started to fire at them with his handgun.

            Early in the war, rumors and speculations were rampant.  Henry and the other soldiers were happy and confident as they looked forward to their first real skirmish.  Henry’s early war experiences were that of setting up camp and marching from one place to another.  Early in the war Henry felt that he was better able to understand what was going on in battle than the general and his staff of officers, who were experienced and who had access to information concerning the battle which he did not have.  Henry was not aware of how inexperienced he really was and how limited his viewpoints were.