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The red badge of courage as a psychological novel
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The red badge of courage as a psychological novel
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The Story “A Red Badge of Courage” is set at the time of the Civil War in America. Young Henry Fleming has always wanted to enlist, but his mother has warned him, and would state a hundred ways on why he would be more helpful on his family’s farm than on the field of battle for his country. When Henry makes the executive decision to enlist, his mother is torn. He wears his blue uniform proudly and has a lot of confidence until he arrives at the battlefield. When Henry gets to camp, he learns that the army is not all that he thought it was. He thought that it would be battles all the time and little to no down time, and it is basically the opposite. He has plenty of time on his hands, and has only seen the enemy once or twice even after months. Then one day a soldier announces that the army will move tomorrow, and Henry ponders a question, will he run from battle, or stay and fight? He ponders this question a few more times, as the army did not move, and cannot come up with an answer.
Henry and his comrades walked for three days, nonstop. On the second day, some of his fellow soldiers were complaining that their bags were too heavy and dropped them, leaving them only with their guns, bullets, and food. On the fourth day, Henry was barely awake when the army started into a run, not a march, and he was afraid. He then said that, “The government brought me here, and now I’m going to die.” He now had that confidence he had at the beginning disappeared. He was deathly afraid of the war and began to walk away from the battle. When Henry joined his regiment again, he began to worry once more. He did not have a clear answer on whether he will fight or run. He began to form some maturity when he came to think about death. He realized that if he died, he would be able to rest, and some of that confidence that he lost began to grow
Henry is worried about how he will do in this first battle. He isn't. sure if he will run or not, and he is scared that he might. He doesn't. want to look like a fool and run, but he is also scared of getting killed.
War changes a person in ways that can never be imagined. Living in a war as well as fighting in one is not an experience witnessed in everyday life. Seeing people die every time and everywhere you go can be seen as an unpleasant experience for any individual such as Henry. The experiences that Henry had embraced during the Vietnam War have caused him to become an enraged and paranoid being after the war. It has shaped him to become this individual of anxiety and with no emotions. The narrator says:
In The Red Badge of Courage, Henry Fleming was drawn to enlist by his boyhood dreams. His highly romanticized notion of war was eclectic, borrowing from various classical and medieval sources. Nevertheless, his exalted, almost deified, conception of the life of a soldier at rest and in combat began to deflate before the even the ink had dried on his enlistment signature. Soon the army ceased to possess any personal characteristics Henry had once envisioned, becoming an unthinking, dispas...
The first time Henry's flaw gets him in trouble is in chapter 10 and when he gets his chance to go into battle he flees. He at first thinks the war is boring but he soon learns that war is very frightening. When Henry flees he also shows insecurity when he tries to make up an excuse for why he wasn't with the rest of the regiment. Henry thinks very poorly of himself at this point and really anyone would run from a war, I don't think he was ready.
We learn that when Henry comes home from the war, he is suffering from PTSD. "It was at least three years before Henry came home. By then I guess the whole war was solved in the governments mind, but for him it would keep on going" (444). PTSD changes a person, and it doesn 't always stem from war. Henry came back a completely different person. He was quiet, and he was mean. He could never sit still, unless he was posted in front of the color TV. But even then, he was uneasy, "But it was the kind of stillness that you see in a rabbit when it freezes and before it will bolt"
In the Red Badge of Courage, the protagonist Henry, is a young boy who yearns to be a Great War hero, even though he has never experienced war himself. Anxious for battle, Henry wonders if he truly is courageous, and stories of soldiers running make him uncomfortable. He struggles with his fantasies of courage and glory, and the truth that he is about to experience. He ends up running away in his second battle. Henry is somewhat nave, he dreams of glory, but doesn't think much of the duty that follows.
The Red Badge of Courage is a descriptive novel about the courage one can develop if he/she rises above the fear. Henry Fleming was afraid and cowardly but, saw the look in his comrade's eyes and changed his entire mindset on the battle. Henry is my favorite character and the most like me for these reasons, he changed his entire way of thought for his regiment. This book is a well written Civil War novel on how war changes people not just for the negative but, for the positive
Events of crisis tend to reveal people’s true character, as well as help those people learn from the experience. Decisions people make during crises can display what kind of personality they have. In The Red Badge Of Courage by Stephen Crane, the youthful main protagonist, Henry, decides to join the army. In the beginning of the novel, Henry exhibits multiple cowardly qualities. However, through a series of battles, Henry learns more about himself and begins to become a remarkably brave soldier. Henry’s transformation from cowardice to bravery is portrayed through Henry’s change in thoughts, actions, and dialogue.
The Red Badge of Courage is not a war novel. It is a novel about life. This novel illustrates the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Stephen Crane uses the war as a comparison to everyday life. He is semi-saying that life is like a war. It is a struggle of warriors—the every day people—against the odds. In these battles of everyday life, people can change. In The Red Badge of Courage, the main character, Henry Fleming, undergoes a character change that shows how people must overcome their fears and the invisible barriers that hold them back from being the best people—warriors, in the sense that life is war—they can be. Henry has a character change that represents how all humans have general sense of fear of the unknown that must be overcome.
Throughout the novel, The Red Badge of Courage, written by Stephen Crane, a theme is portrayed within a battle that takes place during the Civil War. It is that each person must find the courage to win his or her won battle for maturity or adulthood. A soldier, who is also the main character, Henry Fleming, exemplifies this theme.
In the Historical fiction, “The Red Badge of Courage”, written by Stephen Crane; a young man try’s to find courage in himself in the time of war. After watching your commander die in war, would you stay and fight or return home and be a coward? Enlisting Himself into war Henry, to be more than the common man to prove worthyness and bravery. With the sergeant dead will Henry lead his men to victory, or withdraw his men in war. Not being the only are faced with the decision Jim and Wilson Henry’s platoons will have the same decision.
The Transformation of Henry Fleming in The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane's purpose in writing The Red Badge of Courage was to dictate the pressures faced by the prototypical American soldier in the Civil War. His intent was accomplished by making known the horrors and atrocities seen by Unionist Henry Fleming during the Battle of Chancellorsville, and the conflicts within himself. Among the death and repulsion of war, there exists a single refuge for the warrior--his brethren.
This idea is the major framework. of The Red Badge of Courage, in which Henry Fleming aspires to be a man, a hero in the eyes of the masses by enlisting in the army. Henry's goal of the day. Returning a man from war has already marred his image of being a potential hero because his thoughts are about himself and not about the welfare of others. The.
In the Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane, the main character Henry Fleming joins the army as a young fledging and ultimately matures to a courageous soldier ready for battle. The Red Badge of Courage is considered a Bildungsroman since the reader traces Henry’s development morally, psychologically, and intellectually. Henry progresses from a feared youth who in the course of a couple of days, in the line of fire, has crossed the threshold to manhood.
They pulled Henry, but instead of accepting his fate he escaped into the river. He then decided to fully desert the war. Hemingway’s point is that war is a horrible and confusing and that can be seen through Henry’s emotions and experiences during the war. While Henry is at the war front, he seems to be very emotionally detached. Hemingway is trying to say that in order to get through such a horrible experience such as war, people must become shallow.