Henry Flemming Character Analysis

Henry Flemming is an incredibly realistically portrayed character, in the book The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, who voluntarily enlists in the army for the Civil War. This book takes the reader on a journey through Henry’s experiences with the war itself – enlisting, marching, preparing for battle, fighting, healing, and more fighting. The author uses Henry Flemming – the myths he has about what it is like to serve in the army, what strength it takes to survive a battle, and how a person’s morals playout on the battlefield – to properly confront and debunk these myths about what warfare life was like during the Civil War. The 304th regiment, the company Henry joined up with, is able to become fully transformed from a simple group

of men to a strong battalion of soldiers. Readers are given a look into the detailed daily war-life experiences of Henry Flemming as he, too, changes from a nervous, unsure man into a stubborn, near-fearless soldier. The look through Henry’s experiences as a newly enlisted soldier truly draws the reader into a world of overwhelming input from emotions, sensory, pressures from societal obligations, and more. This allows the reader to feel as Henry feels, see as he sees, and worry as he worries.
The first experience we witness Henry work through is that of volunteering for the Union Army. He struggles with this decision, drawing upon many sources in making this consideration. First off, he highly praises the significance of the Greek culture and the glory found of men in the tales of various marches, sieges, and battles. He imagines himself an important part to the Union Cause – a potential war hero pursuing a gallant cause for the good of the country while experiencing the adventure of a lifetime. This motivation is in addition to the importance Henry places on his community’s opinions, shown through their attempts to sway him, and others, through newspapers and village gossip, despite his own mother’s attempts to convince him to stay where he “belongs,” at home on their farm. Henry is an idealistic person, who tends to puts the needs of the community before his own, but, confusingly enough, this is not always done with the intent of selflessness. As Henry expresses before he goes to battle, he is afraid and believes he may even run away in fear. However, when the moment comes, Henry does not selflessly charge into battle and conquer his fears. Instead, Flemming fears of the life of a mental outcast, fears of the consequences from a merciless government, and, should fear, the trouble his curiosity will cause.
Throughout much of the novel, Henry makes decisions based on his own curiosity or based on just how overwhelmed he is by the societal forces of outside expectations.

These decisions are often irrational, dangerous judgements that just happen to appear as selfless acts. For example, when Henry first decides to continue on with his regiment to battle, he does so only under the thought that it is better to go to war and die having “tried” to fight rather than be caught running away as a coward. This could be seen as Henry confronting his fears, but to me, in that moment, it was Henry giving up on trying in life, choosing to die rather than stay a mental outcast as the only soldier afraid to die. Another time, when Henry Flemming was so engrossed in the fighting that he felt as if he didn’t even know where the ground was, he fought so hard that he did not realize there was a break in the shooting, causing his company to worry and stare in disbelief at his level of focus on the enemy that somehow coincided with a lack of reality. The glory of war like the Greeks and the feelings of guilt and embarrassment if he ran instead of fighting both could have motivated him to reach this point. Ultimately, in order to survive the war, Henry was shocked and focused into fighting the rebels in order to stay

alive.
When reading Reid Mitchell’s essay, The Northern Soldier and His Community, motivations to fight within the Union army become very clear, even helping confirm the validity in some of the actions that Flemming took.

The whole of these points, that also rang true within the narrative of Crane’s novel, was that companies and regiments were engrained in their sense of community. Not only was there much communication within intimate relationships of a soldier and his lady back home, but there were newspaper to help spread the gossip and visits from community members to vouch for the gossip through firsthand experience. While it did not appear to be as blatant in The Red Badge of Courage, the opinions of others within his unit and back in his community meant very much. This is shown in Henry’s desires for death over the embarrassment of coming back from battle unscratched. Although coming back without any wartime injuries is supposed to be good, Flemming assigned personal honor and glory to battle, believing you could not have been in battle if you were not hurt. This did initially inspire the Northern men, as it did for Flemming, but it also gave them the strong pressures, as Henry felt, to hold themselves accountable for their actions on the battlefield, too. Overall, while The Northern Soldier and His Community was more of an individual-level of reasoning for pride, glory, and embarrassment, The Red Badge of Courage’s Henry Flemming was mostly concerned for how his

fellow soldiers, and maybe his mother would feel if they learned of his fears in battle. While their details are different, the concepts are spot on.
Crane’s approach to this novel is a bit jarring, leaving the reader very confused at points. For example, during any of the battle scenes, there were many times during the reading in which I was unsure of who was shooting or not shooting, where Henry was headed towards, if there were any enemies around, or who was truly winning the battles. In addition, the writing was very tedious as Crane made sure to include every last detail seen, every fear, every conversation, and every thought that ran through Henry’s mind during his time with the army. Henry had to wait until their regiment was ordered to move, to fight, and to rest. Nothing could be changed until they were ordered to do something as a regiment. While this was frustratingly tedious to read, it really portrayed what Henry was feeling at that time – the roller coaster of emotions produced during war. Some times were tedious with nothing to do but wait, while others were so full of action that there was too much going on to process, even as a reader. Other times, Henry felt clearly aimless and confused, simply walking around and trying to find his way with no result for quite some time.
Other novels about the Civil War may give you a realistic story, as Crane’s novel does. However, this novel, for better or for worse, places the reader into the feelings of what it meant to be in the army. This approach allows the reader the unique chance to experience the Civil War as realistically as possible through their own imagination. This is not what I expected though. When you hear of the Civil War today, you expect tales of gallant efforts and fearless men, as Flemming attributed to the Greek civilizations he read about. However, Flemming is a simple, ordinary farmer with no special talents. However, we were able to see him transform into a fighting machine, effortless focused on the war at hand. In the end, his final motivations may have been influenced by many things, but, to me, Flemming seemed to be motivated to fight by nothing other than primal, barbaric instinct.