The Red Badge of Courage

383 Words1 Page

The Red Badge of Courage

Henry Fleming, also called the youth, is the main character in The Red Badge of Courage. He decided to enlist in the army in hopes of gaining experience and being a part of the war. Although his mother was against him joining the army, Henry wanted the adventure and glory of being part of the war. Henry had many battles to fight within himself. He put off the facade that he was a very confident and strong soldier. But in actuality he was very unsure of himself. He always would question his own masculinity and whether or not he would run or fight in battle when the time came. Henry meets two men in is regiment that he calls the tall soldier and the loud soldier. They all go through the new experience of being in war together.

Later on when they get into battle Henry still has fears of fleeing the battle field. When the time comes to face the enemy Henry ended up running into the woods like many others. After he finds his way back to the regiment he sees what the battle has done to the soldiers. Many of his friends, including the tall soldier, died. Others were wounded. He in a way felt jealous because he didn’t have that wound, “red badge of courage” that they had to show. Henry continued on in the woods and came across a soldier. He tried to help him but the soldiers wouldn’t let him. In the disagreement the other soldier struck Henry with his gun. Henry went back to his camp and all of the men thought he had been wounded in the battle. He went along with this and many thought of him as brave.

The next day Henry had new insight and was not afraid of the battles.

Show More
Related

  • Expressions of Fear in The Red Badge of Courage

    518 Words  | 2 Pages

    The important conflict in The Red Badge of Courage is Henry Fleming's. fear about how he will perform in his first battle. There were three people. who expressed their ideas about their fears before the first skirmish. They Henry Fleming, Tom Wilson, and Jim Conklin.

    Read More

  • Comparing Red Badge of Courage and Great Expectations

    633 Words  | 2 Pages

    The hero of The Red Badge of Courage, which was written by Stephen Crane in the late 1800s, was a young private named Henry Fleming, who was fighting for the North in the American Civil War. Like Pip, in Great Expectations, Henry was a commoner. He was new to the Army and few people knew his name. The main difference between Henry and the earlier heroes is that Henry was not born with leadership qualities or traits like bravery. In fact, in the first battle he fought, he proved himself to be a coward by running from it.

    Read More

  • Stephen Crane and Walt Whitman: The Natural and the Language of Social Protest

    1813 Words  | 4 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Henry Fleming and The red Badge of Courage

    862 Words  | 2 Pages

    The main character of this book is Henry Fleming, mostly referred to as The Youth or Youth. The Youth has dark, curly brown hair also; he is a young teenager and is average height when compared to the Tall Soldier. Henry is insecure because he is going through a difficult stage between being a "man" and being a "boy". Henry can't wait to get to war when he signs up but during the book Henry learns that war has a lot of affects on people emotionally and physically. Henry's flaw is that he is afraid of making himself look bad and he is worried that he is going to be a coward and run away from battle. Henry really wants to be a "man" and be courageous. I once heard a swim coach give an extremely good definition of courage. He said "To me courage is not to be unafraid but it is to be afraid but one does it anyways and doesn't worry about being afraid. I think Henry thought of courageous as fearless and that is also part of his flaw.

    Read More

  • Patriotism In 'The Red Badge Of Courage'

    391 Words  | 1 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • How Does Henry Fleming Change In The Red Badge Of Courage

    1008 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Examples Of Henry In The Red Badge Of Courage

    854 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Red Badge Of Courage Essay

    792 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Red Badge Of Courage Literary Analysis

    593 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Heroism In The Great Gatsby

    2085 Words  | 5 Pages

    At the beginning, Henry Fleming has an undeveloped identity because his inexperience limits his understanding of heroism, manhood, and courage. For example, on the way to war, “The regiment was fed and caressed at station after station until the youth [Henry] had believed that he must be a hero” (Crane 13). Since he has yet to fight in war, Henry believes a hero is defined by what others think of him and not what he actually does. The most heroic thing he has done so far is enlist, but even that was with ulterior motives; he assumes fighting in the war will bring him glory, yet another object of others’ opinions. At this point, what he thinks of himself is much less important than how the public perceives him. As a result of not understanding

    Read More

  • The Transformation of Henry Fleming in The Red Badge of Courage

    1108 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Red Badge of Courage

    1086 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Jenny Wiley Production Of The Musical Robber Bridegroom

    879 Words  | 2 Pages

    Much of the play was silly and illogical, but the ending made less sense then the rest. At the end of the play Rosamund and Jamie had lost each other. She looked for him because she was pregnant. At the same moment that she found him, she went into labor. For the labor the cast held her up and pulled two pillows from her dress. A pink pillow and a blue pillow took place of her twins. Although the play made a statement with the use of pillows it was hard to enjoy the play with the choice.

    Read More

  • No Heros in The Red Badge of Courage and A Farewell to Arms

    1594 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Red Badge of Courage as a Naturalistic Work with Realistic Tendencies

    1669 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about The Red Badge of Courage

Open Document