Red Badge of Courage
"Bullets began to whistle among the branches and nip at the trees...it was as if a thousand axes, wee and invisible, were being wielded." Henry Fleming says as he describes the terrible ordeals of war in The Red Badge of Courage. Stephen Crane, the author of this novel, hadn't been an actual soldier in any war, but he was able to accurately portray battle scenes of war. Crane was also able to thoroughly develop his protagonist, Henry Fleming, in the novel from first hand accounts of actual Civil War veteran's stories in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Crane developed Fleming from a coward to a courageous solder of war.Henry Fleming, referred to as simply "the youth", enlists on the Union side of the Civil War, because of stories of adventures and heroisms. Fleming lives on a farm with his mother in the rural North of the United States. She discourages him from enlisting in the army, and it takes him a whole night to build up the courage to tell his mom that he wants to enlist in the. When he enlists he travels to where his regiment is forming, and he meets a tall soldier named Jim Conklin, who is in his regiment. They become friends during the days before the
The plot centers on a few days of battle. Fleming's first day of battle is incredibly overwhelming. His first battle is on the edge of a field on the left flank of the army. Once Crane fully developed the character Henry Fleming in this novel. The regiment's charge has reestablished its reputation and the youth finds that he has survived to triumph over his fears. "He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was but the great death. He had rid himself of the red sickness of battle." "He was being looked at by a dead man who was seated with his back against a column like tree. The corpse was dressed in a uniform that once had been blue, but was now faded to a melancholy shade of green. The eyes, staring at the youth, had changed to the dull hue to be seen on the side of a dead fish. The mouth was open. Its red had changed to an appalling yellow. Over the trundling was some sort of bundle along the upper lip. The sight of the dead man made Fleming "horror stricken." He is afraid to go back to his regiment, thinking that they will mock him because of his coward ness. He then finds wounded soldiers marching and falls into line wi
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Approximate Word count = 790
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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