The Red Badge Of Courage

When Steven Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage in 1895, he had never been in a battle, not to mention the Civil War. However, it is now considered one of the most accurate representations of war in literature - a feature which many Americans initially checked off as "unpatriotic". Only when British critics praised the novel could forgive Americans Crane suggestion that war is no picnic in the park.

The novel centers on Henry Fleming, aka the Youth, which looks into the war poetry, grandeur, courage and, above all, action - when the ladies Welcome home, that is. What he does not figure in his plans is the fact that war is painful when nothing happens and terrifying at any time something does. During his second round of the battle, the youth revives his relationship with the will to live and down the slopes.

While gripping a pine cone at a squirrel in the forest, the teenager has a revelation: the squirrel does not remain there without fault in response to an honorable death, so why should it? This revelation makes him feel very intelligent, but as with most decisions in life based on the squirrel, the feeling only lasts a few minutes. Young faces then across a corpse is almost riverdancing with ants and another epiphany: the world does not really care who lives or dies. Horrifying as it may be, it's also kind of liberating, and he returned to the battle.

Only in A) realizing that his life is not so important in the grand scheme of things, and B) decide to sacrifice his individuality to a larger concept (as the Union flag, camaraderie, or History of the United States ) is the youth able to reach and influence the battle. It's true: taking the "me" image that really makes the whole "save yourself!" Thing less of a problem. The same logic that makes you plunge the ball like a guy 300 lb Buck traces a path through your teammates: it is better or really want the ball or really your team.

In this spirit, it is not surprising that all the main characters in The Red Badge of Courage both have real names like Henry, Jim, and Wilson and generic names such as youth, the great warrior, or the top soldier . In fact, Stephen Crane was far ahead of his time when he decided to write a war novel that "soldiers personal struggles instead of studying the overall movement of Civil War battles or because of war calendar , but only by showing the individual experience, it could be becoming a cog in the "war machine." Not bad for a guy 20 years old who had literary probably never been in a fight.