Stephen Crane – from The Red Badge of Courage

Stephen Crane's novel The Red Badge of Courage is about a young soldier in the Civil War. The soldier, Henry Fleming is an average soldier who later has to overcome a lot of obstacles and decisions in the meaning of life and death (Crane). Fleming, seeing one of his fellow soldiers fall to his death, takes his place in the very front of the front line which is a very brave and bold move (Crane).

This exert from The Red Badge of Courage shows the main character, Henry Fleming, during battle, and it speaks of his thoughts and fears. "He was at a talks. He was like a carpenter who has made many boxes, making still another box, only there was furious haste in his movements. He, in his thoughts, was careering off in other places, even as the carpenter who as he works whistles and thinks of his friend or his enemy, his home or a saloon. And these jolted dreams were never perfect to him afterward, but remained a mass of blurred shapes" (Crane).

This exert from The Red Badge of Courage portrays a certain subsection of Realism called Naturalism. In this exert the reader can put themselves in the main characters place, and it feels like the reader is the main character. The descriptions in this exert are very good because the author writes an analogy for what the soldier is feeling while in battle. He writes of an analogy that any person can relate to. The analogy is the feeling of doing a monotonous chore or task while thinking about other things like one's family, friends, enemies, classes, schoolwork, or anything else that may come to mind.

This exert from The Red Badge of Courage also depicts Realism because it shows what the soldiers life is like at that given time, and it tells the reader what is really going on in his head. "Presently he began to feel the effects of the war atmosphere - a blistering sweat, a sensation that his eyeballs were about to crack like hot stones. A burning roar filled his ears" (Crane). This passage from the exert of The Red Badge of Courage is an example of Realism because the reader can see and feel what the main character is feeling at that time. It all seems very real.

This exert from The Red Badge of Courage reflects it's time period very well. Obviously, the time period of this exert is from the Civil War. The main character is fighting in a battle which shows what happened in the Civil War pretty well. The exert does not really say how society was affected from the Civil War, but one can guess that society was affected pretty badly from the Civil War. From what the reader has learned in a history class, they should know that the Civil War was pretty harsh on the economy, government, and just every day social and friendship statuses. This exert does not really show any sign of religion in it, and government is not exactly seen in it either. The only reason government could be a part of this is because most of the time the government has something to do with the war. Human nature plays a pretty big part in this exert from The Red Badge of Courage because the reader can read what the main character is thinking. The American Dream and the Hero is not exactly mentioned in this passage either.



Works Cited:

Crane, Stephen. "from The Red Badge of Courage." Glencoe Literature. Ed. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Colombus: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 493. Print.