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Literary perspective on stephen crane the red badge of courage
Literary perspective on stephen crane the red badge of courage
Aspects in red badge of courage
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Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, talks about a young boy becoming a man, through the ways of war. In the story Henry joins the war in search of adventure and courageousness. Henry comes face to face with new friends and foes in the story, along with looking death in the eye on more than one occasion. Stephen Crane does an excellent job in writing this book. After reading this story one general stated that “he recalled fighting in the war with Crane” (Overview).
On November 1, 1871 Stephen Crane the author of The Red Badge of Courage was born. Crane was born in the town of Newark, New Jersey and was the fourteenth child born to Jonathon Townley Crane a Methodist Minister and Mary Helen Peck a Methodist Church writer. Throughout his childhood though, Crane was raised by his sister Agnes, who was fifteen years his elder. From 1885 to 1887 Stephen Crane attended the New Jersey seminary, before going to school in New Jersey though Crane did go to a quasi-military academy. After deciding that the New Jersey seminary wasn't where he wanted to go to school, Crane briefly attended Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. Trying to continue his career in the writing field, Crane attended Syracuse University in 1891 but unfortunately only finished one semester of schooling. When it came to having a love life Stephen Crane got the short end of the stick unfortunately. Mr. Crane fell in love with Lily Brandon Munroe, but “her family convinced her not to marry him” (Crane). While getting over his rough past with Mrs. Munroe, Crane became attracted to an Ohio girl named Nellie Croose, but she rejected him in 1895. After getting turned down by two women that he loved Stephen Crane became “involved with Cora Taylor” (Crane). Mrs. Taylor thou...
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...nd his regiment undergoing many difficulties and tight situations is what make The Red Badge of Courage one of Stephen Crane’s best novels ever written. The book shows that believing in yourself and your friends you can get through anything and all it takes is a little bit of courage.
Works Cited
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. New York: Aladdin Classics, 2005.
“Overview The Red Badge of Courage.” Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Naperkowski. Vol.4. Detroit: Galoe, 1998. Literature Resource Center. Web. Feb.2, 2010
“Overview The Red Badge of Courage.” Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Naperkowski. Vol.4. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Literature Resource Center. Web. Feb.2, 2010
“The Red Badge of Courage: Symbols” LitCharts, n.d. Web. 9 March 2010
The Stephen Crane Society. n.p., n.d. Web. 2, Feb. 2010.
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. Sculley Bradley, Richard Beatty, and E. Hudson Long Eds. New York: W.W. Norton, 1962.
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. United States of America, Chatham River Press, 1984. Print.
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.
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.
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.
The Red Badge of Courage, by Steven Crane, has been proclaimed one of the greatest war novels of all time. It is a story that realistically depicts the American Civil War through the eyes of Henry Fleming, an ordinary farm boy who decides to become a soldier. Henry, who is fighting for the Union, is very determined to become a hero, and the story depicts Henrys voyage from being a young coward, to a brave man. This voyage is the classic trip from innocence to experience. The soldier story, The Red Badge of Courage, was used to reflect the harsh Civil War realities. Cranes style of writing to portray these realities included the technique of symbolism. In this technique, symbols are hidden within certain objects throughout the story to help express the theme. Henry, Jim Conklin, and Wilson all symbolized a specific aspect of mankind.
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.
The Red Badge of Courage takes place during the Civil war and begins with a soldier named Jim Conklin returning back to his regiment to inform them that they might go into battle any day now. The main character of the story Henry Fleming who was recently recruited in the 304th regiment begins to worry about how brave he really is since he has never really been in battle before. The main reason he joined the army was for the honor and glory that came after the battle but he never really analyzed what it took to gain all the glory and honor that he wanted to obtain.
According to The Poetry Foundation, critics have had numerous debates on what literary movement The Red Badge of Courage should be classified as. Crane’s novel has been considered a work of realism, naturalism, impressionism, and symbolism. Those who view the novel as realistic see it as the “first unromanticized account of the Civil War” and a truthful depiction of war and soldiers (Poetry Foundation). The naturalistic viewers believe that the characters and experiences of the novel “are shaped by social, biological, and psychological forces” (Poetry Foundation). The Red Badge of Courage also displays many unique symbols and images and also a “consistent use of color imagery” which leads critics to classify the novel as Symbolistic and Impressionistic as well (Poetry Foundation). To sum up the literary movement of the novel, Edwin H. Cady stated, “’The very secret of the novel’s power inheres in the inviolably organic uniqueness with which Crane adapted all four methods to his need. The Red Badge’s method is all and none’” (Poetry
Gibson, Donald B. The Red Badge of Courage: Redefining the Hero. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988.
The Red Badge of Courage, by it’s very title, is infested with color imagery and color symbols. While Crane uses color to describe, he also allows it to stand for whole concepts. Gray, for example, describes both the literal image of a dead soldier and Henry Fleming’s vision of the sleeping soldiers as corpses and comes to stand for the idea of death. In the same way, red describes both the soldiers’ physical wounds and Henry’s mental vision of battle. In the process, it gains a symbolic meaning which Crane will put an icon like the ‘red badge of courage’. Stephen Crane uses color in his descriptions of the physical and the non-physical and allows color to take on meanings ranging from the literal to the figurative.
Gibson, Donald B. The Red Badge of Courage: Redefining the Hero. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988.
If it was not for Stephen Crane and his visionary work than American Realism would not have taken hold of the United States during the eighteen hundreds. During the years following the Civil War America was a melting pot of many different writing styles. Many scholars argue that at this time there was still no definite American author or technique. Up to this point authors in the Americas simply copied techniques that were popular in regions of Europe. Stephen Crane came onto the scene with a very different approach to many of his contemporaries. He was a realist, and being such he described actions in a true, unadorned way that portrayed situations in the manner that they actually occurred (Kaplan). He had numerous admired pieces but his most famous work was the Red Badge of Courage (Bentley 103). In this novel he illustrates the accounts of a Union soldier named Henry Fleming. At first the writing was considered too graphic and many people did not buy the book. Eventually the American people changed their opinions and began to gravitate towards Crane’s work. The readers were fascinated by the realistic environment he creates even though he himself had never fought in a war (Bentley 103). By spreading the influence of realistic writing Crane has come to be known as the first American Realist.
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, one of the most significant and renowned books in American literature, defies outright classification, showing traits of both the realist and naturalist movements. It is a classic, however, precisely because it does so without sacrificing unity or poignancy. The Red Badge of Courage belongs unequivocally to the naturalist genre, but realism is also present and used to great effect. The conflict between these styles mirrors the bloody clash of the war described in the book – and the eternal struggle between good and evil in human nature.
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.