The Red Badge of Courage :: essays research papers

The name of this book is The Red Badge of Courage, and it was written by Stephen Crane in 1894. It is about a physical and emotional pain that a solider of the Civil War might have went through. The soldiers pain comes from all of the horrible things associated with war. The main character, Henery Fleming, joins the Union army dreaming of the heroic things he will accomplish. At the beginning of the story, he thought that war was a beautiful thing, he thought that it was not such a big deal, but has the story develops, he discovers that war is not so great and becomes real unsure of himself. Henry then meets up with his friend Jim. Then halfway through the book he confronts his cowardice and gains a sense of duty and responsibility. When the novel ends he has conquered his fear., and he is able to prove to everybody that he is really not a coward. Later in the book, Henry meets Wilson, the loud solider, who I think represents the two sides of human nature. Wilson is a mean and tough guy that no one likes and then towards the end of the book he finds that he really cares about Henry. While Henry is dealing with all of his emotions that are moving into war, he finds the friend he needs among his comrades at the war. The book Red Badge of Courage has a very deep meaning because it gives great detail about the hardship of war, the physical and emotional side of it. It shows how a young solider of the Civil War would have felt and also it shows all his fears. It also shows with great detail what was war like in that time. This book is not just about war and the fighting, the book gives very important facts about the camp and the other soldiers that Henry Flemmings interacts with. It tells how soldiers break down in war and that all of them are heroes at sometime in the war. All of the characters in the Red Badge of Courage represent some aspect of man either physically or emotionally.