The Red Badge of Courage

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The Red Badge of Courage (1895) is an impressionistic novel by American author Stephen Crane. The narrator tells about a young, 19-year-old boy named Henry Fleming, a recruit in the American Civil War. The story is about the meaning of courage. Although Crane was born after the war and had never seen battle himself, the novel is one of the most influential American stories of the character of the American fighting spirit and the ultimate source of bravery, written by an American author. Crane met and spoke with a number of veterans as a student and he created what is widely regarded as an unusually realistic depiction of a young man in battle.

His writing is notable for its detached and critical style, often addressing uncomfortable issues on a deeply psychological level in a way that was ground-breaking in the genre. Though Crane never names the battle in which Fleming participates, it is said in the sequel to The Red Badge of Courage, The Veteran, that Henry was fighting in the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863. The battle was won by the Confederacy. There is a slight hint to the battle in The Red Badge of Courage when Henry wishes to say "All quiet on the Rappahannock" during combat as a joke to his comrades. This is in reference to the Rappahannock River, located adjacent to the site of the Battle of Chancellorsville.

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[edit] Plot summary

The young soldier, Henry Fleming, survives a battle by running away and we are led through his emotional journey, as he tries to make sense of the reality of battle and his own role within it, often reaching rather self-serving and egocentric conclusions. He escapes into the forest and meets up with a group of injured men. The "Tattered Soldier" asks Henry, who is often referred to as "The Youth", where he is wounded and he is embarrassed that he does not have any wounds. Henry wanders through the forest and decides that running was the best thing, and that he is a small part of the army responsible for saving himself.

Henry feels incredibly guilty when he learns that his battalion has won and that it wasn't a suicide mission after all. He returns to his battalion and is injured by another fleeing soldier who hits him on the head with the butt of his gun. When he returns to camp, the other soldiers see his wound and think that he was harmed by a bullet grazing him in battle (because that is what he tells them, even though they think it looks awfully similar to someone hitting him on the head with a club). Afterwards, he goes into battle for the third time the next morning. While looking for a stream to get water from, he finds that his regiment has a horrible reputation from the commanding officer. The officer talks casually about sacrificing Henry's regiment because they are nothing more than "mule drivers" and "mud diggers." With no regiments to spare, the general orders his men forward. In the final battle, Henry becomes one of the best fighters in his battalion as well as the flag bearer. Many readers--and Henry--have felt that by mastering his fear and eventually leading a charge, young Henry has become a man.

[edit] List of main characters

  • Henry Fleming: aka "the youth". The young soldier protagonist. He deals with the terror of war and his own conscience. His idealistic and romanticized ideas of war are replaced by true courage and self-confidence.
  • Jim Conklin: aka "the tall soldier", later "the spectral soldier" after his injuries. One of Henry's friends who is gravely injured and who finally succumbs to his wounds in front of Henry. Critics have debated whether the character's initials and martyr-like death are meant as a parallel to Jesus Christ.
  • Tom Wilson: aka "the loud soldier", and later "the friend". Another of Henry's friends, who cares for him after his injury. Together, Wilson and Fleming attain maturity and courage and become the envy of their regiment.

[edit] List of minor characters

  • The tattered soldier: a badly injured soldier who shows concern for the supposedly injured Henry, prompting feelings of guilt on the young soldier's part.
  • The lieutenant: a young, foul-mouthed lieutenant in Henry's regiment.
  • The officers-commonly used in negative context and in general terms, usually portrayed "babbling" or yelling.
  • The injured soldiers
  • Henry's mother
  • The Cheery soldier

[edit] Style

In some ways Crane's style is ornate, as has been noted above, with profuse use of color and rampant metaphor in a way which was rare for his time. The blues and grays of the two sides of the American Civil War are often described as natural phenomena, swirling like clouds. Fleming's Regiment "was a broken machine".

In dialog, however, the style is earthy, written out to sound as close to the vernacular of the day as possible. This realism was later to inform many works but was relatively rare at the time.

[edit] Adaptations

The book was adapted into a film of the same name by John Huston in 1951 starring Medal of Honor recipient Audie Murphy, and again in a made-for-television version starring Richard Thomas that appeared in 1974.

In 2005, Puffin Graphics released a comic-style version of the story, illustrated by Wayne Vansant.

[edit] Literary criticism

  • Perry Lentz, Private Fleming at Chancellorsville: The Red Badge of Courage and the Civil War (2006).
  • Alexander McClurg, Letter to the Dial 1896.

[edit] External links

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