1895                                  
                                                                            
                                STEPHEN CRANE'S                             
                            THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE                        
                                                                            
                                 by Elsa Dixler                             
                                                                            
                                 SERIES EDITOR                              
                             Michael Spring, Editor                         
                      Literary Cavalcade, Scholastic Inc.                   
                                                                            
                                ACKNOWLEDGMENTS                             
        We would like to acknowledge the many painstaking hours of work     
          Holly Hughes and Thomas F. Hirsch have devoted to making the      
                          Book Notes series a success.                      
                                                                            
                                                                            
            (C) Copyright 1984 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc.         
                                                                            
   Electronically Enhanced Text (C) Copyright 1993, World Library, Inc.     
                                                                            
CONTENTS                                                                    
                               CONTENTS                                     
                  SECTION.......................... SEARCH ON               
                                                                            
          THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES................. CREDAUTH                
                                                                            
          THE NOVEL                                                         
          The Plot................................. CREDPLOT                
          The Characters........................... CREDCHAR                
          Other Elements                                                    
               Setting............................. CREDSETT                
               Themes.............................. CREDTHEM                
               Style............................... CREDSTYL                
               Point of View....................... CREDVIEW                
               Form and Structure.................. CREDFORM                
          THE STORY................................ CREDSTOR                
                                                                            
          A STEP BEYOND                                                     
          Tests and Answers........................ CREDTEST                
          Term Paper Ideas......................... CREDTERM                
          The Critics.............................. CREDCRIT                
                                                                            
          Advisory Board........................... CREDADVB                
          Bibliography............................. CREDBIBL                
                                                                            
AUTHOR_AND_HIS_TIMES                                                        
                       THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES             (CREDAUTH)      
-                                                                           
  When The Red Badge of Courage was published in 1895 (it first came        
out in installments in a Philadelphia newspaper at the end of 1894),        
the Civil War had been over for thirty years. In some ways Americans        
were forgetting the war. In the South, whites tried to undo some of         
the war's effects. By the 1890s many of the old Confederate leaders         
were back in power, and blacks had lost their right to vote, and            
couldn't go to school with whites. But in other ways Americans liked        
to remember the Civil War. In little towns in New England and the           
Middle West they built monuments to Civil War dead- something they had      
not done after the Revolution or the War of 1812. Stories about the         
war were tales of bravery and heroism. Its songs were stirring anthems      
like "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."                                     
  Imagine, then, how shocking it must have been to turn the pages of        
The Red Badge of Courage. Here was a novel where you didn't even            
find out the hero's name- if you could call a boy who ran away from         
battle a hero- until halfway through the book. Instead of being             
wounded by Confederate fire, this so-called hero gets his "red badge        
of courage" from a panicked fellow soldier. Henry Fleming's best            
friend, the tall soldier, Jim Conklin, dies horribly, jerking around        
alone in the middle of a field, rather than expiring decorously in          
Henry's arms with his mother's name on his lips. When Henry                 
overhears a general speaking with his aide, he wants to know when he's      
getting his cigars, not about the progress of the battle. And as if it      
weren't enough that this Stephen Crane stripped away the glories of         
war, who had ever written in such language? Most novels were graced by      
flowing sentences, ample paragraphs, and chapters it took a whole           
evening to read. What was this? Who had ever heard anything as weird        
as Crane's language?                                                        
  Those of us who watched "M*A*S*H" or read Catch-22 are not shocked        
by Crane's vision of war. But readers in 1895 couldn't wait to find         
out who Stephen Crane was. One veteran insisted that Crane had been in      
his regiment at Antietam (one of the great battles of the Civil             
War). He was wrong. Stephen Crane was a twenty-four-year-old                
journalist who had never seen a battle, much less fought in one; a          
young man who had flunked out of two colleges, where he had                 
displayed more talent for playing baseball and drinking beer than           
for writing. (Several years later, after Crane covered a war in Greece      
as a journalist, he confessed with relief to his friend, the English        
novelist Joseph Conrad, that "The Red Badge of Courage is all right.")      
  So how did a twenty-four-year-old who had never seen combat create a      
novel that would forever change the way Americans wrote about war? One      
answer might be that he copied the style of a European novelist. In         
fact, European writing in the 1890s was beginning to change in some         
exciting ways. Two French writers, Emile Zola and Gustave Flaubert,         
published novels that outraged proper people. Zola in particular wrote      
in a way that people found brutal and shocking. He wrote about              
prostitutes and coal miners, people who did not appear in the novels        
of the day. And he tried to show that people were in the grip of            
forces- heredity, environment, and instinct- that they could not            
control. Some modern critics have claimed that Zola's novel La Debacle      
was one inspiration for The Red Badge of Courage. Stephen Crane had         
read some of Zola's novels- in English, since his French wasn't that        
good- and he knew about La Debacle, although nobody knows for sure          
whether he read the novel or only a review of it. War and Peace and         
Sebastapol, both by the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, have also been        
named as possible sources for The Red Badge of Courage. Again, Crane        
may have read the books, but he also may have read only reviews.            
  Crane liked to read, and in high school he had enjoyed                    
nineteenth-century British novels and the Greek and Roman classics.         
But he was always more interested in two other things: playing              
baseball and acting rowdy- drinking beer, playing cards, smoking,           
and swearing, all the things that would have made his minister              
father turn over in his grave. It doesn't seem likely that Stephen          
Crane would have been inspired by other people's books.                     
  Baseball and being tough were probably what helped Crane imagine          
what war was like. In fact, Crane once said, "I believe that I get          
my sense of the rage of conflict on the football field. The psychology      
is the same." Actually, baseball was Crane's sport. He was an               
excellent player, and loved to show off by playing without a glove.         
Crane claimed that when he was at boarding school, a place called           
Claverack College on the Hudson River in New York State, "I never           
learned anything. But heaven was sunny blue and no rain fell on the         
diamond when I was playing baseball." When Crane went to college            
(despite its name, Claverack was a high school), first at Lafayette         
College in Easton, Pennsylvania, and then at Syracuse University in         
Syracuse, New York, the amount of time he spent playing baseball            
contributed to his flunking out.                                            
  Crane wasn't being fair to Claverack. He learned something there,         
something about being a soldier. For Claverack was a military academy,      
and Crane's mother had sent him there because the only thing he             
loved more than baseball was playing soldier. (Once, as a boy in            
Asbury Park, New Jersey, Crane had gotten so involved in a game of war      
that he buried a friend in the sand.) At Claverack Stephen practiced        
military drills. And in the evenings, around tables in the dining           
hall, the teachers, former soldiers, sometimes reminisced about             
their experiences in the Civil War. Stephen's favorite, General John        
Bullock Van Petten, had fought at Antietam, which the battle described      
in The Red Badge of Courage resembles in some ways (although it is          
closer to the battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863). Some of the          
stories that showed up in The Red Badge of Courage may have been            
planted in Stephen's head by General Van Petten's tales.                    
  But in the end, Stephen Crane's ability to describe war and to get        
inside soldiers' heads probably came from the kind of person he was,        
and the way he had grown up. Stephen Crane was a minister's son- and a      
minister's grandson and nephew, too- and like at least some other boys      
in that position, he wanted to show people that he was a regular            
guy. That need may have led Stephen to a career in journalism               
(although both of his parents also wrote, as did two of his brothers),      
and to a desire to shock more respectable people.                           
  The struggle to find out what he was really made of, and to test his      
courage in battle, was as important to Stephen Crane as it was to           
Henry Fleming. After The Red Badge of Courage was published he              
traveled as a journalist to Cuba, then fighting for its independence        
from Spain, and to Europe, where he eventually settled in England.          
He became a respected war correspondent for several newspapers,             
showing a great deal of bravery, and he continued to write stories,         
novels, and poems. Like Henry, Stephen could have said that "He had         
been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was but        
the great death. He was a man." Stephen Crane died of tuberculosis          
on June 5, 1900, five months before his 29th birthday. If he had            
lived, would he have, as Henry did, "rid himself of the red sickness        
of battle" and "turned... with a lover's thirst to images of                
tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks"? It is hard to know.            
It's almost impossible to imagine Stephen Crane as an old man.              
                                                                            
PLOT                                                                        
                              THE NOVEL                                     
-                                                                           
                              THE PLOT                      (CREDPLOT)      
-                                                                           
  The Red Badge of Courage describes how Henry Fleming, a young             
soldier from New York State, first experiences fighting at the              
Battle of Chancellorsville during the American Civil War. At first          
Henry is nervous, and even runs away after one of the first                 
skirmishes, but eventually he returns to his regiment and fights            
bravely. By the battle's end, Henry has learned a lot about himself         
and the meaning of courage. He has grown up, and so have many of his        
fellow soldiers.                                                            
  This is the plot of The Red Badge of Courage. The novel does not          
tell a story so much as it focuses on the perceptions and                   
development of one young man. We see what war looks like to Henry, and      
the effect it has on his thoughts and feelings. In many chapters there      
is action- Henry's friend dies, or the Confederate soldiers charge and      
the Union troops push them back. But in other chapters nothing much         
happens except in Henry's mind. Because Henry's emotions swing back         
and forth- sometimes he feels proud and brave, other times like a           
criminal- the book does not follow a straight line either.                  
  As The Red Badge of Courage opens, we meet Henry Fleming, who has         
signed up for the army against his mother's wishes, full of dreams          
of becoming a hero. But so far he has done nothing but sit around           
the camp. With all that time on his hands, Henry begins to worry            
whether he will be able to fight bravely, or whether he'll run away         
when the shooting starts. He talks to some of the others about it, but      
because he cannot really explain his fears, he feels more and more          
alone. Jim Conklin, a friend from home, thinks he'll do whatever the        
other boys do; a loud soldier named Wilson is full of boasts. The           
first sight of battle is terrifying, and Henry feels worse and              
worse. Even the loud soldier, convinced he's about to be killed, gives      
Henry some letters for his family.                                          
  During the first skirmish Henry fights well, feeling as much part of      
the regiment as the fingers of a hand. They hold the enemy back. But        
while they are relaxing, the enemy strikes again. Now Henry is              
exhausted and terrified. When two men standing near him turn and            
run, he throws down his gun and races to the rear. He tells himself         
that the regiment was about to be wiped out, and that saving himself        
was a responsible act. But he soon realizes that the line had held.         
Now he is furious at the other soldiers for making him look like a          
coward when he's sure that he was right.                                    
  Feeling awful, Henry walks into the woods, both to hide and to            
make himself feel better. He throws a pine cone at a squirrel, the          
animal scampers off, and he thinks to himself, "What I did was only         
the law of nature; animals protect themselves." But in the heart of         
the forest, under trees arched like a cathedral, Henry confronts a          
horrible sight: a dead man terribly decayed, whose face is covered          
with ants. He stares at the dead soldier, realizing that this is the        
real law of nature.                                                         
  Leaving the woods, Henry walks along with some wounded men. He            
envies them and wishes that he too had a wound, a red badge of              
courage. One of the men, he realizes, is his friend, Jim Conklin,           
who is dying. Henry and another soldier, a tattered man, follow Jim         
into a field, where he runs from bush to bush, looking for a good           
place to die. Then, his body jerking horribly, he falls. This scene         
ends with the most famous line in the book: "The red sun was pasted in      
the sky like a wafer."                                                      
  The tattered man keeps asking Henry where he's been wounded. His          
questions make Henry nervous that he'll be found out. So he leaves the      
tattered man- who is badly wounded and needs help- and goes on              
alone. Next he encounters some soldiers who appear to be retreating.        
Eager to find out what's going on, Henry grabs one soldier's arm. In a      
panic, the soldier hits Henry on the head with the butt of his              
rifle. Now Henry has a red badge of courage- except that it came            
from his own side! A man with a cheery voice comes along and helps          
Henry find his way back to his regiment, where the others welcome           
him warmly. They do not question his story, and believe that the top        
of his head was grazed by a cannonball. The loud soldier, Wilson,           
seems to have quieted down, and he and Henry become good friends.           
Henry feels a little superior to him because Wilson thought he would        
die in the first encounter, but he gives him back his letters               
without rubbing it in.                                                      
  Henry is still struggling with himself. He's afraid he'll be found        
out, but he also feels pretty good, telling himself that at least he        
ran away bravely. When the next day's fighting begins, Henry gets so        
involved in shooting that he doesn't stop even when the rebels              
withdraw. During the next charge, some of the other soldiers hesitate,      
and Henry helps the lieutenant urge them forward. He sees the Union         
flag falling, and he and Wilson pull it out of the hands of the             
dying color bearer. After the next charge the regiment is criticized        
for returning to its lines too quickly, but Henry and Wilson are            
commended for bravery. They charge again, they're exhausted, but            
another charge is necessary. Unbelievably, they find some remaining         
strength and move forward in a frenzy, not thinking about danger or         
themselves. They win- Wilson captures the Confederate flag and they         
take prisoners.                                                             
  During the actual fighting Henry had not been thinking about              
himself; he acted on instinct, feeling like an animal or a savage.          
As the regiment marched away, he began to think about his experiences.      
He was proud of his bravery- although it was nothing like his               
childhood dreams- and embarrassed by his desertion of the tattered          
man. But in the end he realized that through it all he had become a         
man. Walking along, he daydreamed about the comforts of peace as the        
sun broke through the heavy clouds.                                         
                                                                            
CHARACTERS                                                                  
                           THE CHARACTERS                   (CREDCHAR)      
-                                                                           
  HENRY FLEMING                                                             
  Henry Fleming is the major character in The Red Badge of Courage.         
Because Crane never tells us what he looks like, just how old he is,        
or exactly where he comes from, and usually refers to him as "the           
youth" or "the young soldier," Henry could be any young man                 
experiencing war for the first time.                                        
  Yet even without these facts about Henry, we do know quite a bit          
about what he's like. We know that he grew up on a farm in New York         
State. His father is apparently dead, and he was raised by his              
loving mother. We know- from his mother's warning as she says good-bye      
to him- that his life has been pretty quiet and protected.                  
  Henry signs up in the army because he is excited by the idea of           
being a hero. He has read in school about the ancient warriors (he          
knows that war is no longer like that), and he is thrilled by the           
sound of church bells in the night, sounding the news of victory. He        
doesn't think at all about the Union cause. He joins the army even          
though he knows that his mother wants him to stay on the farm, but          
he is a little apologetic when he tells her. We can see how immature        
Henry still is by how he feels about his mother's reaction to the           
news. She gives him hand-knitted socks and sensible advice; he wants a      
speech about heroism. But he does have a chance to play the hero            
when he visits his old school, and also on the train to Washington.         
  But these visions of glory sink quickly in the mud of camp life.          
Henry's regiment, the 304th New York, doesn't see any action for quite      
a while, and Henry is bored and uncomfortable. He is also insecure,         
and worries about whether he will really be as brave as he'd like to        
be. He tries to talk to some of the other soldiers- his friend Jim          
Conklin from back home, and a loud soldier named Wilson- but the            
others don't seem to be as apprehensive as he is, or at least they          
don't show it. He can't explain his fears clearly, so he doesn't get        
the reassurance he needs, and he feels frightened and alone.                
  Henry fights well enough in the regiment's first engagement with the      
enemy, but in the second he is exhausted and very scared. When two men      
standing near him run, he throws down his gun and races away from           
the fighting. He rationalizes his action by telling himself that the        
regiment was about to be wiped out. When he realizes that instead they      
had won, he becomes angry at his fellow soldiers. Now Henry's flight        
becomes emotional as well as physical. He is running away from what he      
has done.                                                                   
  During his flight, he has many important experiences. He comes            
upon a dead man in the woods, and he watches the death agonies of           
his friend Jim Conklin. When the tattered soldier questions him             
about his own wound, Henry runs away again. His discomfort at being         
found out is stronger than his feeling of responsibility for a dying        
man.                                                                        
  Being wounded by a retreating Union soldier is the beginning of a         
change in Henry. Until now he has been full of rationalizations and         
denial. He is afraid not only of battle, but of being teased by his         
fellow soldiers. When the panicked soldier strikes him on the head,         
Henry has a real wound to match his inner wound of fear and shame.          
(The tattered man had asked Henry whether he was wounded inside, and        
in a way the answer was yes.) Even though Henry's "red badge of             
courage" is phony, it helps him to feel and act like someone who has        
experienced war. As Henry begins to think about the previous day, he        
realizes that he has really seen a lot.                                     
  But Henry's achievement of courage and maturity isn't easy. Even          
after he is wounded, and finds his regiment again, he is full of poses      
and hot air. He tells the others a lie- that he was wounded while           
fighting with another regiment- and they believe him. By the next           
day he feels pretty good about himself, conveniently forgetting             
about the cowardly and irresponsible things he did. Henry is feeling        
so smug that he begins to criticize the generals and boast about his        
own heroism, until he is brought down a peg by one of the other             
soldiers.                                                                   
  When the regiment goes into battle on the second day, Henry stops         
thinking about himself and begins to act on instinct. Then he is            
able to fight bravely, even heroically. He is pleased with these            
real achievements, and enjoys being singled out for praise by the           
lieutenant and the colonel. When the fighting ends, and Henry has time      
to evaluate all of the events of the past two days, he is able both to      
take pride in his courage and to look at his cowardice                      
realistically. Now, at last, he has become a man.                           
  Some readers of The Red Badge of Courage disagree about Henry's           
character. Those readers who think that the book is a Christian             
allegory (that the red sun in the sky is a communion wafer and that         
Jim Conklin represents Jesus Christ) think that Henry is redeemed by        
Jim's death. Others, who see it as a psychological study of the             
effects of war on a young man, think that in human terms Henry has          
grown and matured, that he has given up his dreams of individual glory      
and learned the real meaning of courage, the giving up of selfishness.      
These readers see Henry's realistic evaluation of himself in Chapter        
24 as proof of his development.                                             
  But some people think that Henry has not changed that much by the         
end of the book. They point out that there is no steady growth in           
Henry's understanding. Even after the horrible experiences of his           
day of flight, when he looked death in the face, he can still tell          
himself that he is braver than Wilson. These readers see Henry's            
feelings of love for the flag in Chapter 19 as silly romanticism.           
And they argue that after his experience in the forest in Chapter 7 he      
should know better than to fantasize about the beauty of nature, as he      
does at the book's end. To these readers, Henry's visions of the            
comforts of peace are daydreams every bit as boyish as his earlier          
thinking about war. Besides, the war is hardly over; it will                
continue for two more years.                                                
  Another dispute over Henry's character focuses on how much he is          
in control of what he does. Some readers see Henry as a creature of         
instinct throughout the book. He runs away out of instinct (he is           
tired, he sees two soldiers deserting), he returns to his regiment out      
of instinct, and eventually he fights bravely out of instinct. These        
readers point to the patterns of imagery in the novel to support their      
argument. Crane repeatedly describes war as a beast or a machine.           
Either way it is a force bigger than any one man. Henry himself thinks      
of the regiment as an iron box he's caught in, and as a hand of             
which he's one finger. He returns to the regiment like a moth to a          
flame. Henry's maturation, these people claim, is the same as the           
regiment's growth in experience; these things just happen. Heroism,         
they say, isn't individual; it's acting according to instinct within        
the regiment.                                                               
  But other readers, while agreeing that Crane shows war to be a force      
larger than individual men, argue that Henry does make choices. He          
does not wind up winning the battle himself as he once dreamed he           
would. That kind of warfare no longer exists, if it ever did. But           
within the boundaries set down by the nature of the war and the             
regiment, Henry does reflect, and he does become, at least in part,         
responsible for his actions. This debate about Henry's character is         
part of a larger question about whether The Red Badge of Courage is         
really a naturalistic novel, that is, whether Crane sees people as          
being totally in the grip of forces outside themselves.                     
  You must decide for yourself what you think about Henry's character.      
One way to do that is to pay close attention as you read the book to        
what is going on in Henry's mind. Remember that much of the vivid           
and unusual language in The Red Badge of Courage describes how              
things looked to Henry. He is thoughtful and observant, and we              
really do hear a lot about his reactions to things. You should also         
try to separate what Stephen Crane thinks about Henry from what you         
might think. You can do that by listening carefully to the                  
narrator's voice on the rare occasions when it describes characters or      
comments on the action.                                                     
-                                                                           
  HENRY'S MOTHER                                                            
  Henry's mother is not an important character in the novel, and she        
disappears after Chapter 1. But we still learn something about her,         
and through her about Henry. She is hard working- she milks the             
cows, peels potatoes, knits socks, and makes blackberry jam. And she        
dearly loves her son.                                                       
  Henry is annoyed because his mother won't see him as the hero he          
wants to be. And in fact, she does treat him as if he were a little         
boy. She warns him to stay away from bad company, not to do anything        
he couldn't tell her about, and not to drink or swear. And she tells        
him to send his socks back to her for darning.                              
  At the same time, much of her advice is realistic and sensible.           
She doesn't want him to go to war, and she claims- probably correctly-      
that he'd be more useful on the farm. But it takes Henry the space          
of the whole novel to learn the truth of what his mother tells him-         
"Yer jest one little feller amongst a hull lot of others." His              
mother urges him to be brave- she tells him not to shirk, and to do         
what's right, even if it means being killed- but it's a more mature         
kind of bravery than Henry can understand at this point. When in            
Chapter 15 Henry imagined destroying his mother's "vague feminine           
formula for beloved ones doing brave deeds on the field of battle           
without risk of life," he wasn't being fair to her. His mother's            
only "feminine formula" is that women have to bear their men going off      
to war.                                                                     
-                                                                           
  JIM CONKLIN                                                               
  Jim Conklin, "the tall soldier," appears several times early in           
The Red Badge of Courage. In fact, he is the first character we             
meet, as he goes down to the river to wash his shirt in the muddy           
water. Jim returns to camp with a rumor that the army is about to           
move. Some of the men believe him, some men don't, but they all listen      
to him. Jim appears to be a natural leader.                                 
  Jim is always calm and matter-of-fact, even under difficult               
circumstances. Henry Fleming, his childhood friend, can't understand        
why Jim seems unconcerned about the coming battle when he, Henry, is        
so frightened. Jim was no different from him when they were growing up      
together, Henry thinks. He comes to the conclusion- and he's                
probably right- that the challenge of war has brought out the best          
in Jim.                                                                     
  As the regiment is marched from place to place before the fighting        
begins, Henry rants about the stupidity of the officers, and generally      
bounces off the walls. Jim sits quietly, following orders and               
accepting whatever happens. He frequently eats pork sandwiches from         
his knapsack, and looks to Henry as if he is communicating deeply with      
his food. Jim helps to calm his friend down.                                
  But for all his unself-conscious bravery, Jim Conklin is badly            
wounded in the first day's battle. When Henry encounters him again,         
Jim is dying. He does not complain about his wounds, but begs Henry to      
get him out of the road so that he is not run over by the artillery         
wagons. Even in his agony, he has been wondering how Henry was              
doing. As death approaches, Jim runs into a field, looking from bush        
to bush for the place he wants to die. He pushes aside Henry's              
offers of help, and meets his death alone. His body jerking                 
horribly, he falls. Another witness to his death, the tattered              
soldier, is impressed by Jim's bravery.                                     
  What are we to make of this quiet, modest, yet exceedingly brave          
man? Some readers identify Jim with Jesus Christ, and claim that his        
death absolves Henry of his sins of cowardice. They point to Jim's          
initials, J.C., the wounds in his hands and sides, like Christ's            
stigmata, and the appearance of the "red sun pasted in the sky like         
a wafer" when Jim dies. (For more on this identification, see the           
detailed discussion of Chapter 9.) Other readers see him simply as a        
saintly, mature man, at peace with himself and so able to face war.         
  Jim's character sheds some light on Henry's. Jim appears to grow          
as a result of the experience of war, and that leads us to believe          
that Henry, too, can. His consistent courage contrasts with Henry's         
cowardice. The brave and simple way Jim faces death makes a                 
contribution to Henry's- and our- understanding of the meaning of           
courage. In addition, the horrible realism with which Crane                 
describes his death shows the hollowness of romantic dreams of war.         
-                                                                           
  WILSON                                                                    
  Wilson is called "the loud soldier" in the early chapters of The Red      
Badge of Courage, but later, when he teams up with Henry, he usually        
appears as "the friend." We first meet Wilson early in Chapter 1            
when he picks a fight with Jim Conklin about Jim's story that the army      
is about to move. Wilson has no more information than Jim does, but he      
already knows it all.                                                       
  As the regiment prepares for battle, Henry Fleming tries to find out      
whether Wilson shares his fears. The loud soldier boasts about how          
well he'll fight, and is sure he'll never run. He laughs at Henry           
and makes him feel much worse. But just before the first battle Wilson      
brings Henry some letters to give his family after his death, for           
Wilson is sure he's about to die. So much for bravery!                      
  We don't see Wilson during the chapters describing Henry's flight.        
When we meet him again he's very different. Wilson is the sentry            
when Henry returns to his regiment, and Wilson greets him warmly,           
and tenderly bandages his wound. He doesn't take offense when Henry         
snaps at him, and he gives Henry his blanket to sleep under. Henry          
sees that Wilson has been transformed by his experience of battle,          
that he no longer takes himself so seriously, but has a quiet belief        
in his abilities. When Henry points out this change, Wilson laughs and      
says that he used to be quite a fool. Blushing, Wilson asks Henry to        
return his letters.                                                         
  During the next battle, Wilson, now called "the friend," assumes          
something of Jim Conklin's role in calming Henry down when his              
nervousness takes the form of bad-mouthing the officers. Wilson fights      
bravely, always in the front of the line, and along with Henry, is          
singled out for praise. Wilson helps Henry rescue the Union flag            
when the color bearer is shot, and, in the last skirmish, captures the      
Confederate flag.                                                           
  In the book's early chapters we see some similarities between Wilson      
and Henry. Wilson's way of coping with fear is different from Henry's:      
he's obnoxious, and he doesn't realize how scared he is, the way the        
more thoughtful Henry does. The character of Wilson shows us that           
Henry isn't the only untested soldier, isn't the only one with a            
problem about being brave. Wilson is apparently changed by the first        
day's battle. As with Jim's increasing bravery, the change in Wilson        
suggests that Henry will mature as well. By the end of the book Wilson      
and Henry have become so much alike- fighting bravely together- that        
they almost seem to have become one character.                              
-                                                                           
  THE TATTERED MAN                                                          
  Henry encounters the tattered man when, fleeing from his regiment,        
he falls in with a group of wounded soldiers. The tattered man appears      
to be simple and innocent. When we first meet him he is listening to a      
sergeant with such awe that the sergeant begins to laugh at him. The        
tattered man is almost pathetically eager to make friends with              
Henry. Unfortunately for him, his questions about Henry's                   
nonexistent wound scare the young soldier off.                              
  The tattered man and Henry meet again in Chapter 9, when the              
tattered man helps him to take care of Jim Conklin. The tattered man        
is impressed by Conklin's bravery, but he is too unsophisticated to         
express his admiration in more than the simplest language (he calls         
Jim's death "funny"). He is extremely sympathetic to what he                
imagines to be Henry's wounds (and he's right that Henry has a              
"queer hurt" inside, although he doesn't know how right). He is             
uncomplaining about his own injury, and bravely insists that he             
isn't going to die. But Henry, afraid the tattered man will figure out      
that he's not wounded, leaves him, probably to die alone.                   
  It is hard to know what to make of the tattered man. The constant         
reference to him as "tattered" almost suggests a clown, and his             
simplicity causes the sergeant in Chapter 8 to call him a "yokel."          
Still, the tattered man is brave, kind, and responsible to others.          
Henry's response to him shows the young soldier at his worst, and as a      
foil to Henry, he plays an important role in the novel. But it is a         
little hard to believe the tattered man is quite real. Henry, his           
mother, Wilson, and Jim Conklin are described in at least some              
realistic detail. Despite references to his two children, and to his        
wish for a warm bed and a bowl of pea soup, the tattered man does           
not seem to be a fully realized character.                                  
-                                                                           
  THE CHEERY-VOICED MAN                                                     
  This character not only lacks a name, but Henry never even sees           
his face. Still, the cheery-voiced man, in guiding Henry back to his        
regiment, makes a contribution to the book. His skill at threading his      
way through the woods and among the patrols, and his easygoing calm,        
make him seem magical to Henry, and so to us. But he appears to be a        
perfectly ordinary man.                                                     
-                                                                           
  BILL SMITHERS                                                             
  Bill Smithers is a very minor character, but he is an interesting         
one. In Chapter 2, before we know his name, someone steps on his hand,      
and he swears loudly. In Chapter 4 we learn that Bill went to the           
hospital with his so-called wound. But when the doctor threatened to        
cut off his three crushed fingers- presumably in order to scare Bill        
out of malingering- Bill wouldn't let him. The soldier who tells            
this story laughs at Bill, saying that he wasn't scared, oh no, just        
mad.                                                                        
  Bill Smithers is a figure of fun who often pops up in the regiment's      
conversations. In the heat of battle in Chapter 6, a tired soldier          
wishes that Bill Smithers had stepped on his hand instead of he on          
Bill's. And in the last chapter another soldier announces that Bill         
says that the hospital, which is shelled every night, is more               
dangerous than ten thousand battles.                                        
  Bill Smithers serves some important functions in the novel, although      
he doesn't appear after Chapter 2. He, like Henry, is only                  
pretending to be wounded. But while Henry came back to the regiment         
after being hurt, Bill took advantage of his phony wound to sit out         
the rest of the war in the hospital. That tells us that Henry did have      
some choice, and makes us think that his return to his regiment showed      
some guts. But Henry was terrified of being thought a coward, while         
Bill Smithers doesn't seem to mind it. The men joke about him, but          
he is the author of the joke. This also contrasts with Henry's              
attitude.                                                                   
-                                                                           
  LIEUTENANT HASBROUCK                                                      
  Hasbrouck, the young lieutenant of the 304th regiment, is always          
swearing. He is also, without thinking about it, extremely brave.           
Unlike the other officers we see, who don't have much concern for           
the enlisted men, Hasbrouck defends his soldiers' performance and           
makes sure they get the recognition they deserve. Always at the head        
of his troops, uncomplaining when he is wounded, Hasbrouck is a real        
leader. He is a model of what Henry and Wilson will achieve by the          
novel's end.                                                                
                                                                            
SETTING                                                                     
                           OTHER ELEMENTS                                   
-                                                                           
                               SETTING                      (CREDSETT)      
-                                                                           
  The Red Badge of Courage takes place in and around Chancellorsville,      
Virginia, during the course of several days in late April and early         
May 1863. Not that Crane tells us either of those things. He doesn't        
even tell us that Henry and his friends are fighting the Civil War,         
although we can guess that from the soldiers' blue and gray                 
uniforms. A reader who knows Civil War history will recognize some          
details in the novel- the strategy of crossing the river and                
circling behind enemy lines, the pontoon bridges, the plank road- from      
accounts of the bloody Battle of Chancellorsville. But not until Henry      
says sarcastically in Chapter 16, "All quiet on the Rappahannock," the      
name of the river that flowed through Chancellorsville, are we              
absolutely certain of the setting. The battle took place on May 2-3,        
and the story begins several days earlier, in the Union Army camp.          
  Henry and his regiment fight in the fields, forest, and hills around      
Chancellorsville, and occasionally he notices a house or a farmer's         
horses tied to a fence. The natural beauty of the scenery is sometimes      
contrasted to the ferocity of war. But there is not much detailed           
description of the setting. These woods and hills could be anywhere,        
just as the battle could be anywhere. The lack of specific detail           
generalizes the story for us. This is not only, maybe not even, a           
story of the American Civil War, but about war in general.                  
                                                                            
THEMES                                                                      
                               THEMES                       (CREDTHEM)      
-                                                                           
  COURAGE                                                                   
  The central theme of the book is courage- what it is and how to           
get it. When the book opens, Henry Fleming thinks courage is displayed      
by storybook heroes, the knights and Greek warriors he read about in        
school. Despite his mother's warning that he can't fight the whole war      
alone, Henry thinks he will. That is what courage means to him. Once        
he joins the army, and sees how horrible war is, he becomes terribly        
frightened. He worries that he will be a coward.                            
  A number of other characters in the novel show various types of           
courage. Hasbrouck, the young lieutenant, is always brave, always           
urging his men forward, and always sticking up for them. Jim                
Conklin, Henry's friend, is calm and collected, follows orders, and         
faces death with matter-of-fact dignity. Henry's mother shows courage,      
too, when she sends Henry off to war even though she loves him and          
needs his help on the farm, saying, "The Lord's will be done." And the      
tattered man, who is kind and uncomplaining despite his wounds, also        
shows a kind of courage.                                                    
  But the courage that is prized in this book is courage in battle.         
Crane describes it as unthinking, savage, and almost more animal            
than human. "It is," Crane writes, "a temporary but sublime absence of      
selfishness." By the second day of battle Henry and Wilson have             
achieved this kind of courage, as has the rest of the regiment.             
  "The red badge of courage" referred to in the title is a wound. It        
is ironic, of course, that Henry is finally wounded by a retreating         
Union soldier, not by an advancing Confederate one. His wound is            
really a badge of shame, not of courage. But he and the other soldiers      
treat it as if it were a wound honestly gotten- and perhaps, in a way,      
it was. Henry's experiences during this first flight from battle            
eventually teach him a great deal about life and death. When Henry          
shows real courage in the second day's fighting, he is not wounded.         
-                                                                           
  WAR                                                                       
  The theme of war is closely related to that of courage. Crane             
describes war with a realism unusual for his time. He gives us the          
boredom and mud of camp life, the repetitiveness of soldiers'               
conversations, the arrogance of the officers, the constant thunder          
of the guns. He also shows us war in its almost surrealistic horror.        
We see the dreadful deaths of Jim Conklin, Jimmie Rogers, and many          
unnamed men. Again and again we see bodies twisted into unbelievable        
positions. And we see the terrible randomness of war. There is no           
reason why a bullet strikes one man and not another.                        
  When the novel opens, Henry has a romantic view of war, which events      
quickly poke holes in. Even at his most heroic, when he picks up the        
falling Union flag, there is a gruesome detail- he has to pry the           
flagpole out of the dying color bearer's hands. War turns out to be         
much grimmer than Henry ever imagined, just as courage turns out to be      
a matter of animal instinct rather than individual grace. Still, Crane      
seems to accept Henry's view that war takes the measure of a man,           
and he certainly believed that in his own life. Some modern writers         
about war, like Ernest Hemingway, would agree; others, like Joseph          
Heller, would not.                                                          
-                                                                           
  THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY                                                
  This is a less important, but still recognizable, theme in The Red        
Badge of Courage. Again and again Henry has to be told, "You can't          
fight this war alone." He imagines himself turning back hordes of gray      
soldiers. He always knows better than the generals. Becoming a real         
hero- and a man- for Henry requires becoming a better member of the         
group. He learns to follow orders without complaining, and he begins        
to feel like part of the regiment. When Henry was concerned about           
saving himself, he ran away. Only when he learns that he's one man          
among many is it possible for him to show courage.                          
-                                                                           
  GROWING UP                                                                
  In the course of The Red Badge of Courage Henry Fleming- and              
Wilson and Conklin- do a lot of growing up. The generalized setting         
and Crane's habit of not using the soldiers' names makes this a             
story about the effect of war on young men, not just about the              
effect of the Civil War on a few individuals. But in some ways the          
story is even more general than that. It is about overcoming fear, and      
learning to be brave; about giving up romantic dreams, and looking          
at the world as it really is. In this way The Red Badge of Courage          
is not just the story of how Henry Fleming became a man, but a story        
about growing up. In that respect it resembles many of the great            
classics of western literature, from the Greeks on.                         
                                                                            
STYLE                                                                       
                                STYLE                       (CREDSTYL)      
-                                                                           
  The language in The Red Badge of Courage is unusually important. The      
way things are described- that is, the way Henry Fleming sees them-         
tells us most of what we know about how Henry is growing and changing.      
Not that much actually happens in the book; Henry's changing                
perceptions are its main action.                                            
  Crane uses two styles in The Red Badge of Courage. One is the             
straightforward realism of the dialogue. Most of the characters in the      
book talk like country people, and their speech is reproduced               
accurately, dropping final g's and d's and using words like yer for         
your. But although the dialect is accurate, he leaves some things out.      
Crane never lets us hear his soldiers swearing- he only tells us            
that they do.                                                               
  The book's other style is also realistic, but it is a special kind        
of realism. Crane usually does not tell us what a thing "really"            
was, but rather what it looked like to an observer, usually Henry           
Fleming. In the opening lines of the book, for example, the                 
landscape didn't really change from brown to green, but the rising sun      
made the fields look green rather than brown. In the same way,              
campfires across the rivers are dragons, the marching army is a             
serpent; a line of guns are Indian chiefs at a powwow, because they         
look that way to Henry. Instead of giving us details about the              
characters, Crane simply gives us an impression of them- "the loud          
soldier," "the youth," "the tall soldier." It is like a line drawing        
rather than an oil painting.                                                
  Crane writes in short sentences and paragraphs, and generally uses a      
simple vocabulary. He usually turns to fancy words only when he is          
making fun of a character's pretensions.                                    
                                                                            
VIEW                                                                        
                            POINT OF VIEW                   (CREDVIEW)      
-                                                                           
  The Red Badge of Courage is told in the third person; that is, the        
narrator says "he," not "I." Someone other than Henry Fleming is            
telling this story, but it is still Henry Fleming's story. Henry is         
present in every chapter, and most chapters are about him (those            
that aren't are about his observations of other characters). So we can      
say that the novel's point of view is that of Henry Fleming.                
  Events in the book are described as they appeared to Henry. This          
technique is very effective in the battle scenes. The narrator may          
have read books about the Civil War, and known what was really going        
on, but Henry didn't. Because we see only what Henry saw, we get a          
very vivid view of war, with exploding shells, puffs of smoke, the          
screams of the wounded, and the constant noise of the guns. The             
chaos and confusion of war are presented through this focus on              
sometimes confusing details, and the short paragraphs add to the            
confusion.                                                                  
  But Henry Fleming is the only character we know from the inside.          
We know what he is thinking and feeling at every minute- even the           
weather changes with his moods! But we never find out what is going on      
in the minds of Jim Conklin or Lieutenant Hasbrouck or Wilson. Some         
readers have said that these other characters become almost extensions      
of Henry's personality. They are in the novel to provide comparisons        
and contrasts with Henry, but unlike him, they are not real people.         
  The narrator rarely says anything in his own voice. During Henry's        
flight, for example, we are inside Henry's head, seeing the dragon          
approach, and we understand why he runs. We also understand his             
rationalization and experience his shame and guilt. Sometimes the           
narrator makes a little fun of characters, as when he tells us in           
the first chapter that the tall soldier "developed virtues and went         
resolutely to wash a shirt." This comment does not tell us what Jim         
looked like, but gives the narrator's opinion of him. The narrative         
voice tells us what it thinks only a few times. The most important          
of these is in Chapter 19, when it defines courage as "a temporary but      
sublime absence of selfishness." This isn't the way Henry Fleming           
talks or thinks, but he would probably agree with the definition.           
                                                                            
FORM                                                                        
                          FORM AND STRUCTURE                (CREDFORM)      
-                                                                           
  The Red Badge of Courage consists of twenty-four brief chapters;          
except for the first, longer one, they are all about the same               
length. Each chapter has an easily identifiable subject and a clear         
bearing on Henry's acquisition of courage and coming to manhood.            
  Readers like to divide the chapters into sections according to their      
theme. The only problem is that everyone likes to do it a different         
way. Do the four sections consist of chapters 1-6, 7-12, 13-18, and         
19-24? Or does it make more sense to talk about chapters 1-4, 5-6,          
7-11, 12-14, and 15-24? Or how about chapters 1-3, 4-8, 9-15, 16-20,        
and 21-24? Any way of dividing up the chapters that makes the book's        
meaning clearer to you makes sense.                                         
  A number of readers have pointed out that the chapters alternate          
in various ways. The army marches forward in some, and waits in             
others; the soldiers alternately charge and rest. This gives the            
book a kind of seesaw rhythm. Another reader claims that the                
chapters alternate between hope and despair in Henry's mind.                
                                                                            
CH_1                                                                        
                              THE STORY                     (CREDSTOR)      
-                                                                           
                              CHAPTER 1                                     
-                                                                           
  Have you ever imagined that you were a hero- running into a               
burning house to rescue a child, racing after a mugger and getting          
someone's wallet back, or walking on the moon? Have you ever read           
about great battles of the past, like Iwo Jima or the Normandy              
landings, and pictured yourself fighting in them? Have you ever             
thought to yourself that there really isn't any way to be a hero            
anymore? And have you ever worried that you might not have what it          
takes to be truly brave?                                                    
  Then meet Henry Fleming, a farm boy from upstate New York in the          
1860s. Henry wants to be a hero and he isn't sure he's got the guts.        
To find out, he enlists in the Union army during the American Civil         
War. The Red Badge of Courage is his story. As you read the book,           
you will find yourself asking, along with Henry, what courage means,        
who has it, and how you get it.                                             
  The Red Badge of Courage opens like a movie: the camera pans to take      
in the whole scene. Spread over a range of hills are the tents and          
campfires of an army camp. As the camera turns, we see the color of         
the fields begin to change from brown to green, the fog lifts, and          
we hear the first noises in the camp. It is morning. We guess that          
it is spring, because the roads are ribbons of mud.                         
  Now the camera focuses on a man who walks down to the muddy river at      
the bottom of the hill to wash a shirt and returns waving it above his      
head like a flag. This man, identified only as "the tall soldier," has      
something to tell the rest of the men. He has heard a rumor that the        
army is about to move, that the soldiers will cross the river and           
attack the enemy from the rear.                                             
  As the tall soldier delivers his news, some of his buddies begin          
to argue with him. One of them, "the loud soldier," shouts, "It's a         
lie!"                                                                       
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: Crane does not immediately tell us the names of the characters      
in The Red Badge of Courage. They are referred to as the tall soldier,      
the young soldier, the loud soldier. This makes us think that this          
is a story about kinds of people rather than specific people, that          
it is about any young soldier, not just this one.                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  As we, the readers, watch and listen to this argument, we pick up         
a number of facts. First we learn that the army has been camped in          
this place for a long time. The loud soldier says that he's gotten          
ready to move eight times so far, but they haven't moved yet. Then          
we learn that nobody has been telling these soldiers what's really          
going on, so they are trying to figure it out for themselves. That          
is why they are so dependent on rumors like the tall soldier's; even        
if they aren't true, they're all the information these men have.            
Finally we learn who the men are. They are soldiers of the Union            
(northern) army, because they wear blue shirts; and from their accents      
we can tell that many of them grew up in the country.                       
  One of the men leaves the group and goes into his tent to lie down        
and think about what he has just heard.                                     
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: We still don't know the young soldier's name, but we know a         
lot about what his tent looks like! Crane tells us about the                
pictures on the walls, the cracker-box furniture, and the way the           
sunlight comes through the small window to make a square on the floor.      
And the way the soldiers talk- dropping the final d's and g's from          
their words, using words like ain't- is the way country people              
really sounded in the 1860s.                                                
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  It's hard to believe that they are finally going into battle. As a        
boy, he had dreamed about war and had imagined himself a hero. But          
he had also come to believe that the time of the great wars was as far      
away as kings and castles. People would never again fight the way they      
had in the olden days.                                                      
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: The fancy language Crane uses to describe the young                 
soldier's daydreams- "He could not accept with assurance an omen            
that he was about to mingle in one of those great affairs of the            
earth"- is very different from his usual short sentences and                
matter-of-fact way of putting things. Here Crane is poking a little         
fun at the young soldier's fantasies about being a hero.                    
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  When the Civil War had started, the boy had wanted to enlist. His         
mother had discouraged him, saying that his work on the farm was            
more important than what he would do in the army. But he had                
probably thought that the army would be more exciting than milking the      
cows. Lying on his bunk in the tent, the young soldier remembers how        
he had signed up. One night at home he had listened excitedly as the        
church bells rang out the news of a great battle. When he went to           
his mother's room to tell her he was going to enlist, she replied,          
"Henry, don't you be a fool," and pulled her quilt over her head. This      
scene shows us that Henry's mother doesn't take him very seriously,         
and that she still treats him like a child. It also lets us know the        
young soldier's name- Henry.                                                
  But the next day Henry had enlisted anyway. When he got home his          
mother was milking a cow. A little hesitantly, he told her the news.        
"The Lord's will be done, Henry," she sighed. But Henry was                 
disappointed by his mother's response. Although she cried a little,         
she continued to go about her chores. And the advice she gave him           
was as down-to-earth as milking the cow. "I know how you are,               
Henry," she said, and she told him not to "go a-thinkin' you can            
lick the hull rebel army at the start, because yeh can't. Yer jest one      
little feller amongst a hull lot of others...." She warned him against      
falling in with a bad crowd and not to do anything "that yeh would          
be 'shamed to let me know about. Just think as if I was a-watchin'          
yeh." But at the same time she urged him not to shirk and to do             
"what's right." Finally she gave him eight pairs of socks, some             
shirts, and a glass of blackberry jam. He is to send the socks back to      
her for repairs.                                                            
  His mother's attitude- resigned, homey, still not taking him              
entirely seriously- almost spoils Henry's mood. He had hoped that           
she would say good-bye to him like mothers did in history books. But        
as he turned back for a last glimpse of home, he saw her sobbing as         
she peeled potatoes, and he felt ashamed of what he had done. Still,        
he had other chances to feel excited. He stopped by his school,             
where a dark-haired girl he liked stood at the window, watching him         
leave. And on the train to Washington, the new soldiers had been            
treated like heroes.                                                        
  But life at camp had been disappointing. Henry and his fellow             
recruits had nothing to do but sit around and try to keep warm. He          
began to return to his old idea that the time for heroic warfare was        
past, and that he and his fellows were only part of "a vast blue            
demonstration." The only Confederates he saw were soldiers across           
the river, with whom the Union soldiers talked comfortably while            
they were all on guard duty at night.                                       
  The older soldiers liked to tease Henry and the others, calling them      
"fresh fish." They were full of stories of the horrors of war. But          
it was hard for Henry to know whether or not to believe them. Lying on      
his bunk, realizing that he was finally about to enter his first            
battle, he wondered whether he had the guts for it. "It had suddenly        
appeared to him that perhaps in a battle he might run. He was forced        
to admit that as far as war was concerned he knew nothing of himself."      
  Now the tall soldier, the one who had started the rumor that they         
were on the verge of fighting, and the loud soldier who had                 
disagreed with him, come into the tent, still squabbling. Henry asks        
the tall soldier, whose name turns out to be Jim Conklin, whether           
any of the boys will run once the fighting starts. Jim thinks that          
some of them might, but that even though they are untested, the boys        
will do all right. Then Henry asks Jim the really hard question:            
"Did you ever think you might run yourself, Jim?" "If a whole lot of        
boys started and run, why, I s'pose I'd start and run," Jim answers.        
"But if everybody was a-standing and a-fighting, why, I'd stand and         
fight." Jim's answer makes Henry feel better, because it shows him          
that not everyone else is a storybook hero, either.                         
  In this first chapter we meet people with different attitudes toward      
war. Henry imagines himself as a legendary hero like the ones he has        
read about, and likes to show off to the girls at school, but at the        
same time he is terrified that he will run at the first sign of             
fighting. The old veterans like to scare the new recruits with their        
war stories, making themselves seem brave. Henry's mother doesn't           
think much of war, and urges Henry to take care of himself and not          
to try to fight the whole Rebel army himself. Jim's idea is                 
something like Henry's mother's- he sees himself as part of a group of      
soldiers. He isn't worried about individual courage. What they do,          
he will do; what they can't, he won't. Notice the behavior of the loud      
soldier. Why does he keep quarreling with Jim? Perhaps, even if he          
doesn't say so, he's a little frightened himself.                           
  Crane introduces another theme of the book when he has Henry admit        
that "as far as war was concerned he knew nothing of himself." In           
the chapters that follow, Henry will learn what war is like, and            
will learn something about the meaning of courage; he will also             
learn what kind of person he is.                                            
  This first chapter also reveals quite a bit about Crane's style.          
In general, he writes in short sentences, paragraphs, and chapters,         
and his vocabulary is fairly simple, except when he is laughing at one      
of the characters. He shows us many realistic details of camp life;         
still, some of the descriptions of the scene are rather poetic, such        
as the opening paragraph. In reading The Red Badge of Courage, pay          
close attention to Crane's language. Where is he being poetic and           
using unusual metaphors? Where is he being realistic and giving us the      
details of daily life? Where is he being abstract and making the story      
seem like a fable? Crane's language communicates a great deal of            
meaning.                                                                    
                                                                            
CH_2                                                                        
                              CHAPTER 2                                     
-                                                                           
  As it turned out, Jim Conklin's rumor was wrong, and the regiment         
stayed where it was. This left Henry more time to worry about               
whether he would be brave enough to fight, and he began to feel             
increasingly isolated. He had known Jim Conklin, the tall soldier,          
since childhood. He didn't think that Jim could do anything that he,        
Henry, couldn't, and Jim didn't seem to be afraid of battle. But            
that didn't make him feel any better. Afraid to confess his fears           
openly to the other soldiers, he could not get the comfort that he          
needed from them.                                                           
  Finally one morning the regiment prepared to move. As the men waited      
eagerly, a man on horseback rode up to the colonel. Were these the          
regiment's orders? As the messenger galloped off, he called to the          
colonel, "Don't forget that box of cigars!" Once again, Henry feels         
let down. The messenger and the colonel are concerned about the             
details of everyday life, not with heroism. They are very much like         
Henry's mother.                                                             
  As the regiment marches along, the men begin to feel that they are        
all in this together. They sing songs and make jokes. When a fat            
soldier tries to steal a horse from a house they pass, and a young          
girl runs after him and rescues the animal, everyone cheers her and         
laughs at the soldier. The more the other soldiers form a group, the        
more Henry feels like an outsider.                                          
  Henry starts a conversation with the loud soldier, whose name, we         
find out, is Wilson. In reply to Henry's persistent questions,              
Wilson says, "I s'pose I'll do as well as the rest.... I'm not going        
to skedaddle." "You ain't the bravest man in the world, are you?" asks      
Henry, who is feeling very uneasy. "No, I ain't," the loud soldier          
answers. "I said I was going to do my share of fighting- that's what I      
said. And I am, too. Who are you, anyhow? You talk as if you thought        
you was Napoleon Bonaparte." We know very well that Henry doesn't feel      
like Napoleon, but we can see why he sounds that way. Henry is              
trying to make himself feel better about his own doubts, and he             
winds up insulting the loud soldier. After this discussion, Henry           
feels even worse.                                                           
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: Henry is doing something that everybody does sometimes. He          
feels different from everybody else, but because he's embarrassed to        
tell people why, he sounds too sure of himself. He winds up feeling         
very much alone and very sorry for himself.                                 
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  Crane's description of the army's preparations for its march is           
striking. In the opening paragraph of Chapter 1 Crane had referred          
to the "red, eyelike gleam of hostile campfires." Now he tells us           
that: "From across the river the red eyes were still peering." This is      
the beginning of a practice Crane follows throughout the novel,             
referring to inanimate objects as if they were alive. For example, the      
regiment, finally on the move, "was now like one of those moving            
monsters wending with many feet.... There was an occasional flash           
and glimmer of steel from the backs of all these huge crawling              
reptiles. From the road came creakings and grumblings as some surly         
guns were dragged away." The army has become a crawling reptile, and        
the guns have taken on human emotions. Later, when the army pitches         
its new camp, "Tents sprang up like strange plants. Campfires, like         
red, peculiar blossoms, dotted the night." The effect of all this is        
to make the army seem to be part of nature, subject to forces larger        
than itself. It also heightens the impression that we have already          
gotten from the use of labels like "the tall soldier" and "the young        
soldier," that this is not so much a story about a specific regiment        
from New York State in the American Civil War as it is a timeless           
story.                                                                      
  Crane also uses these dramatic visual images to help us understand        
what is going on inside Henry's mind. In a paragraph that begins, "One      
morning, however, he [Henry] found himself in the ranks of his              
prepared regiment," Crane tells us that "In the eastern sky there           
was a yellow patch like a rug laid for the feet of the coming sun; and      
against it black and patternlike, loomed the gigantic figure of the         
colonel on a gigantic horse." Later, "As he looked all about him and        
pondered upon the mystic gloom.... Staring once at the red eyes across      
the river, he conceived them to be growing larger, as the orbs of a         
row of dragons advancing. He turned toward the colonel and saw him          
lift his gigantic arm and calmly stroke his mustache."                      
  Crane is again making inanimate objects human; the sun has feet that      
will step on the rug of a patch of sky. But here some of the                
personification is Henry's. He sees the enemy campfires as eyes, and        
imagines them as the eyes of approaching dragons. He also sees the          
colonel on his horse as "gigantic." Chances are, the colonel was no         
larger than any other man. As Henry observes him, silhouetted               
against the rising sun, we can both see the colonel in our own              
minds' eyes, and we can see Henry's vision of him as an enormous            
heroic figure. How disillusioning, then, when this gigantic figure,         
almost like a statue, turns out to be worrying over a box of cigars!        
Although the story is being told by a narrator, not by Henry, we are        
learning quite a lot about what is going on in Henry's mind. Henry          
is not saying to us, "I looked across the river," as he would if            
this were a first-person narrative. But instead of just telling us          
that Henry was afraid, or that Henry wanted to believe that war was         
heroic, Crane is letting us see the world through Henry's eyes.             
Through these images he shows us what Henry sees, and that helps us         
understand what Henry feels. In this chapter we recognize that the          
focus of the book will be on Henry and his perceptions. As the chapter      
ends we see through Henry's eyes again. He imagines his fear as a           
monster with many tongues, and "He admitted that he would not be            
able to cope with this monster."                                            
                                                                            
CH_3                                                                        
                              CHAPTER 3                                     
-                                                                           
  As this chapter opens, the army crosses the river on pontoon              
bridges, just as General Burnside's troops crossed the Rappahannock in      
order to attack Lee and Jackson's troops from the rear. The next day        
they woke early and marched deep into a forest. Hot and tired, they         
began to drop their knapsacks and take off some of their clothing,          
stripping down to what was absolutely necessary. Now they looked            
less like a new regiment.                                                   
  Then the regiment camped again, and Henry began to think again            
that they were "a blue demonstration," there only to look like an           
army. But one morning the young soldier sensed that "the time had           
come. He was about to be measured." Looking around, he realized that        
he could not escape. The regiment "inclosed him. And there were iron        
laws of tradition and law on four sides. He was in a moving box." It        
seemed to him that he had not enlisted voluntarily, that he had             
somehow been forced into the army.                                          
  As the soldiers climbed a hill, they heard the sound of artillery.        
The young soldier scrambled to the top, expecting to see a battle           
scene spread out below him. Instead there was chaos. Henry and his          
regiment came upon the body of a dead soldier, and separated to walk        
around him. The boy lay on his back, his feet sticking out of his worn      
shoes. Death had exposed the poverty that the soldier may have been         
able to hide from his friends. Henry stared at the dead man, trying to      
find the answer to his big question about war.                              
  The regiment halted in the forest, where some of the men began to         
build fortifications, but soon they were ordered to withdraw. The           
youth grumbled loudly as they marched from place to place for no            
reason that they could see. He still wished that things would be            
decided one way or another, that they would either return to camp or        
go into battle. He complained to the tall soldier, who sat calmly,          
eating a pork sandwich. Unlike the young soldier, the tall soldier          
seemed to accept whatever happened.                                         
  As the soldiers watched another brigade go into action ahead of           
them, the loud soldier approached the young one. Even though he had         
told the young soldier (in an earlier chapter) that he could fight          
as well as the rest, his lip was trembling as he said, "It's my             
first and last battle, old boy." Convinced that he was about to be          
killed, he gave the young soldier a small bundle of letters to bring        
to his family.                                                              
  In this chapter, as the regiment prepares to go into battle, we           
see three reactions among the soldiers. Henry, the young soldier,           
continues to be agitated and upset. He still holds on to his                
romantic dreams, even though they are contradicted by what he               
observes. He alternates between wishing for battle and wishing to be        
back at camp or on the farm. The tall soldier, Jim Conklin, is quiet        
and resigned. And the loud soldier, Wilson, has a premonition of his        
death, and sentimentally gives the young soldier some papers to             
bring back to his folks. Which of them will show courage in the battle      
ahead? How would you act in their places?                                   
  Crane continues to employ symbolic language. Tracing some of the          
symbols from chapter to chapter will help us to understand Crane's          
meaning. One of the most important symbols in this book is color. We        
have already noticed references to campfires as "red eyes" or "red,         
peculiar blossoms." In this chapter war is described as a "red              
animal," and the skirmishing soldiers Henry views from the hill are         
called red, although their uniforms must have been blue. Yellow             
appears again in the color of the dead man's suit, and purple in the        
color of the soldiers' uniforms as they crossed the bridge in the           
early morning light. Be alert to color as it appears in the chapters        
that follow.                                                                
  Color is not the only image Crane uses. Throughout these first three      
chapters he has made several references to Greek mythology. Henry,          
as a schoolboy, had dreamed about war as a "Greeklike struggle," and        
he had hoped that his mother would say something about returning on         
his shield, the way Greek warriors killed in battle were carried home.      
Often the images of Greek culture are used ironically- they                 
represent Henry's fantasies of war, not the real thing. But it is           
interesting that at the opening of this chapter the Rappahannock (we        
still do not know its name) is characterized as "wine-tinted." Homer        
often referred in The Iliad to the "wine dark sea," and this                
allusion would have been easily recognized by Crane's readers at the        
time. Is Crane suggesting here that the Union soldiers really were          
as heroic as the Greek warriors of old?                                     
  Another frequent image in The Red Badge of Courage is religious.          
We have already heard about the "mystic gloom" of the morning and of        
the "weird, satanic effect" of firelight. In this chapter there are         
references to the "blood-swollen god" (of war) and to the "cathedral        
light" of the forest. The loud soldier waves good-bye to Jim in a           
"prophetic" manner. Religious imagery is another pattern that should        
be followed, especially when it relates to the tall soldier, Jim            
Conklin.                                                                    
                                                                            
CH_4                                                                        
                              CHAPTER 4                                     
-                                                                           
  The soldiers are poised on the edge of battle, trying to see through      
the smoke to figure out which way to point their guns. There is gossip      
about how other regiments and commanders are doing. "That young             
Hasbrouck, he makes a good off'cer. He ain't afraid 'a nothin'."            
  One of the soldiers tells a comic story about someone named Bill:         
"Bill wasn't scared either. No, sir! It wasn't that.... He was jest         
mad, that's what he was." Bill's hand had been trampled during the          
march (an episode we heard about in Chapter 2). Bill announced that he      
was willing to give his hand to his country (an ironic echo of              
Nathan Hale's "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my        
country"), but left the battle to go to the hospital anyway. When           
the doctor threatened to amputate the three crushed fingers, Bill           
fought with him and stormed out.                                            
  As the young soldier and the others watch, the regiment ahead of          
them is being defeated. Shells whistle by, leaves fall from the trees,      
and wild yells are heard. Through it all, the veterans continue to          
joke. The lieutenant of the young soldier's company is shot in the          
hand. He swears so angrily that the men laugh. He holds the hand            
carefully so that the blood doesn't drip on his pants, and the captain      
helps him to wrap the wound in a handkerchief.                              
  In this chapter as in the last we see a variety of kinds of courage.      
Some of the commanders the troops gossip about are said to have it.         
The soldier named Bill apparently does not; the comment that he wasn't      
scared, just mad at the doctor, seems to be sarcastic. For all his          
boasting, Bill wasn't willing to give up his hand. We also see the          
reaction of the lieutenant to the wound in his hand. This is the young      
soldier's first real view of battle, and it is wild and frightening.        
  As the young soldier's regiment is surrounded by troops fleeing           
the battle they have just lost, he looks fearfully at their faces. Now      
it is up to the reserves, his own group. He has not yet seen the            
monster that drove his troops away, but he expects to, and then, he         
thinks, he really might run himself.                                        
                                                                            
CH_5                                                                        
                              CHAPTER 5                                     
-                                                                           
  In this chapter the young soldier participates in a battle for the        
first time. The 304th regiment, to which he belongs, stands firm.           
Yet the battle itself is more horrible than anything that we, or the        
young soldier, have seen yet.                                               
  As the Confederate troops suddenly appeared, the young soldier tried      
to remember whether his rifle was loaded. He heard a general shout          
savagely to the colonel of the 304th, "You've got to hold 'em back!"        
while the colonel stammered, "we-we'll d-d-do- do our best, General."       
  Perspiration streaming down his face, his mouth slightly open, the        
young soldier began to fire his gun. Then "He suddenly lost concern         
for himself.... He became not a man but a member.... He was welded          
into a common personality which was dominated by a single desire.           
For some moments he could not flee, no more than a little finger can        
commit a revolution from a hand."                                           
  Unlike the pictures he had seen in schoolbooks, in this battle the        
soldiers didn't seem to be posing for statues. Officers bobbed to           
and fro and almost stood on their heads as they tried to see the enemy      
through the smoke. Rifles jerked, and the lids of cartridge boxes           
flapped unfastened.                                                         
  One of the soldiers tried to run away. The lieutenant went after him      
and beat him back into the ranks. His hands were shaking too much           
for him to reload his gun, so the lieutenant had to help him. Now           
men were dying. The crying man who had tried to desert was grazed by a      
bullet. Another grunted and sat down as he was hit in the stomach, a        
look of reproach in his eyes.                                               
  Eventually the firing slowed down, and the men realized that the          
line had held. Looking around, the youth saw the bodies of the dead in      
strange positions, arms bent and heads turned in unbelievable ways. He      
was amazed to observe that fighting was still going on in other             
places, that the battle just ended was not the only one of the day.         
And he was also amazed to notice the blue sky and shining sun above.        
To think that the sun would keep shining through all that!                  
  This chapter is a skillful portrayal of the horror and unreality          
of war, its strange sounds and smells and movements. Crane describes        
it in swift, sure strokes, sketching character in a phrase (the             
"passionate gesture" with which the general rides away) or                  
describing something awful in one sentence ("It seemed that the dead        
men must have fallen from some great height to get into such                
positions").                                                                
  A number of image patterns continue. Going into battle, Jim               
Conklin knots a red handkerchief around his neck; Henry, in the heat        
of battle, feels a "red rage." Crane also continues to personify            
inanimate objects. "The guns squatted in a row, like savage chiefs.         
They argued with abrupt violence. It was a grim pow-pow. Their busy         
servants ran hither and thither." Crane describes a line of wounded         
men as "a flow of blood from the torn body of the brigade."                 
  Crane goes on with the imagery of hands, and of amputation begun          
in the previous chapter. The young soldier feels as firmly a part of        
his regiment as the fingers of a hand, reminding us of Bill's               
crushed fingers or the lieutenant's wounded hand. "If he had thought        
the regiment was about to be annihilated perhaps he could have              
amputated himself from it," Crane tells us, making us think of              
Bill's refusal to have his hand amputated, or of the description of         
the lieutenant's hand as a "wounded member." Several hands are hurt in      
these chapters, but none of them is cut off.                                
  The young soldier is able to fight successfully now because he feels      
like part of a group. He is a member, a finger on a hand. Because he        
is not thinking of himself but of the group, he is able to behave           
courageously.                                                               
  There have been references to the sun before in the book, but this        
is the first chapter that closes with the image of the sun shining          
above the field of battle. Several other chapters will also end this        
way, and we must be alert for them.                                         
                                                                            
CH_6                                                                        
                              CHAPTER 6                                     
-                                                                           
  The young soldier relaxed after the battle, picking his cap off           
the ground, wiping his sweaty face, chatting with the others. Suddenly      
a cry went up. The Confederate soldiers were attacking again.               
  But by now the men were exhausted, and they groaned loudly to each        
other. The youth was near exhaustion: his eyes looked like a tired          
horse's, his neck was quivering, his arm muscles felt numb, and his         
knees were weak.                                                            
  The youth fired a shot. But the soldier next to him turned and            
ran. Then another young man, who had struck the youth as especially         
brave, also threw down his gun. Watching them, the young soldier            
yelled and headed for the rear. He ran wildly, without looking,             
bumping into trees, sometimes falling down. He thought that the             
whole regiment was fleeing, and he raced ahead in order to keep as far      
ahead of the enemy as possible. Eventually the youth came to a              
battery; the gunners continued to shoot them as if they didn't realize      
that the army was in retreat. They seemed to him to be fools.               
Looking to one side, he saw another brigade charging into action to         
come to their aid. They must be fools, too.                                 
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: Why do you think Henry runs away? Is he a coward? Do you think      
(as some readers do) that he had no control over what he did, that          
he was as much an animal as the tired horse he resembled? Or do you         
think he could have forced himself to stay and fight? Many readers          
argue over this point.                                                      
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  Later he passed a general and tried to overhear what he was saying        
to the staff members who surrounded him. He half expected that the          
general would ask him for advice, and he would give him a piece of his      
mind for the stupid way he was handling things. Instead, he heard           
the general order one of his men to send in another regiment to             
support the center of the line, in danger of breaking. But a moment         
later, the general jumped up in his saddle. "Yes, by heavens,               
they've held 'im!" Sending another messenger after the first, the           
general bounced up and down in his saddle with joy.                         
  The description of the young soldier's flight relies heavily on           
language Crane has already used. He speaks again of the war god, but        
in this chapter, "The slaves toiling in the temple of this god began        
to feel rebellion at his harsh tasks." In the previous chapter the          
regiment was likened to a body; here, "The sore joints of the regiment      
creaked...." This language suggests to us that many of the soldiers         
are ready to flee, preparing us for the youth's action.                     
  In Chapter 4 the youth had been sure that he would flee "if he could      
have got intelligent control of his legs." In Chapter 2 he had seen         
the campfires across the river as "the orbs of a row of dragons             
advancing," and, in Chapter 4, he expected to get a glimpse of "The         
composite monster which had caused the other troops to flee." In            
Chapter 6 all of these images come together in his vision of the new        
Confederate attack as "an onslaught of redoubtable dragons. He              
became like the man who lost his legs at the approach of the red and        
green monster.... He seemed to shut his eyes and wait to be                 
gobbled." This fantasy is all the more powerful because the youth           
has previously imagined monsters, and felt that his legs couldn't           
move.                                                                       
  Once again Crane depicts the machinery as alive. The exploding            
shells look like "strange war flowers bursting into fierce bloom,"          
an image used before to describe tents in the camp. "The battery was        
disputing with a distant antagonist," and the gunners "seemed to be         
patting them on the back and encouraging them with words. The guns,         
stolid and undaunted, spoke with dogged valor." But while the guns are      
alive to the young soldier, he sees the gunners as machines:                
"Methodical idiots! Machine-like fools!" And we remember that he            
called the Confederate soldiers "machines of steel." Again, there is        
religious imagery; the decision to run is "a revelation," the               
general's eyes display "a desire to chant a paean," and there are           
several references to the war god. The color red appears several            
times, in a mention of "the red, formidable difficulties of war," in        
the color of the monster in the legend the young soldier recalls,           
and in the angry lieutenant's face as he tries to make the youth get        
back in line. In a way, this chapter, like the previous one, ends with      
an image of the sun- but this time, the happy general "beamed upon the      
earth like a sun."                                                          
                                                                            
CH_7                                                                        
                              CHAPTER 7                                     
-                                                                           
  Listening to the cheering, the youth realized that the Union              
soldiers had won after all. At first he was happy, but then he began        
to feel annoyed. He tells himself that "he had done a good part in          
saving himself, who was a little piece of the army.... If none of           
the little pieces were wise enough to save themselves from the              
flurry of death at such a time, why, then, where would be the army?"        
The youth begins to think that the other soldiers had been fools            
who, in their stupidity, had made his intelligent decision look wrong.      
He began to pity himself, imagining the laughter when he returned to        
camp.                                                                       
  Trying to get away from the sounds of battle, as well as from his         
increasingly bad feelings, the youth walked into a forest. But              
creepers caught on his legs and saplings banged into him. Afraid            
that all these noises would give away his position, he went deeper          
into the woods. Now that he could no longer hear the sounds of battle,      
he felt better. The sun came out, and the insects chirped. "This            
landscape gave him assurance. A fair field holding life. It was the         
religion of peace.... He conceived Nature to be a woman with a deep         
aversion to tragedy."                                                       
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: When the young soldier is feeling relieved to be in the forest      
away from the battle, he imagines nature as a woman, peaceful and           
comforting. This is the way some of the romantic poets and writers          
of the first half of the nineteenth century wrote about nature. By the      
end of the century, this view was no longer widely accepted.                
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  In this peaceful place he playfully threw a pine cone at a squirrel,      
and the animal scurried away. This was the law of nature, the youth         
told himself; threatened, animals ran. He begins to think that              
nature forgives him. But in the beautiful forest, he passes through an      
unpleasant swamp, which could have told him, had he wanted to learn,        
that nature has more than one face. He saw an animal leap into the          
black waters and catch a fish- showing another of nature's laws, the        
triumph of the strong, the survival of the fittest. This is not what        
the young soldier wants to see.                                             
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: The idea of the survival of the fittest comes from The              
Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. In this book, written at just          
about the time the action in The Red Badge of Courage takes place, the      
English naturalist claimed that in nature, those plants and animals         
strongest and best adapted to the environment survive, while the            
weak die off. Darwin was writing about the natural world, but by the        
1880s and 1890s other writers were applying his ideas to human              
society. People like Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner wrote        
books to prove charity was wrong. Poor people should be allowed to die      
off, while the rich, who were fittest, should survive. And labor            
unions were wrong, because they made weak people artificially               
strong, and that ran against the law of nature. People couldn't do          
very much to change their conditions. This view was called "social          
Darwinism." The passage about the animal and the fish brings to mind        
the ideas of both Darwinism and social Darwinism.                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  Finally he comes to a place like a "chapel," suffused with "a             
religious half light." Crane is using powerful religious imagery here;      
this "dark, intricate" place is both the heart of nature and deeply         
religious. Yet where the chapel's altar should be, the youth sees           
something else- a man dead and decaying, his face covered with ants.        
This is really nature's law- not the scampering squirrel, or a woman        
turning away from tragedy, but death and decay. As the blue uniform         
turns green, becoming part of the forest, and as ants work their way        
over the dead soldier's face, his body returns to the earth. Here is a      
revelation for the youth as compelling as the "revelation" of his need      
to flee in the previous chapter. When the dead man and the living           
one stand face to face, the youth must realize that although he can         
run from a battle, he cannot escape this fate.                              
                                                                            
CH_8                                                                        
                              CHAPTER 8                                     
-                                                                           
  The stillness of the forest is shattered by an incredibly loud            
noise. The youth begins to run in the direction of the battle he            
just ran away from, because it sounds so big and so important that          
he thinks he ought to see it.                                               
  The youth is beginning to feel ashamed of his flight. No longer does      
he defend it to himself as correct and intelligent. He begins to            
look at the experience with some distance: the engagement was probably      
not even a major battle, although the soldiers thought they were            
winning the whole war by themselves. Maybe misguided ideas about            
becoming a hero serve some purpose, because they keep soldiers from         
deserting.                                                                  
  Once again Crane uses the metaphor of war as a machine. It grinds         
out corpses, and it mangles men's bodies. And once again Crane uses         
red to mean warlike, as in the phrases, "crimson roar" and "red             
cheers." Nature is still holy, but the references to hymns and              
devotions in the opening of the chapter are somewhat ironic.                
  Finally he came to a road, where he fell in with a crowd of               
wounded men. One of them, whose shoe was full of blood, hopped up           
and down like a schoolboy. Another, who seemed about to die, stared         
straight ahead. An officer cursed the privates who were kind enough to      
carry him, and yelled at the crowd to make way. One of the bearers          
bumped heavily into the dying soldier.                                      
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: This dying man is called the spectral, or ghostly, soldier.         
Both the man and the word play an important role in the next chapter.       
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  One of the wounded was a man in tatters who was listening with an         
air of astonishment to a sergeant's tall tales. The sergeant teased         
him for his lack of sophistication, and the tattered man, embarrassed,      
shrank back and tried to make friends with the youth. He spoke in a         
gentle voice, praising the courage of the Union soldiers. "Well,            
they didn't run t'-day, did they, hey? No, sir! They fit, an' fit, an'      
fit." Then he asked the youth in a brotherly way, "Where yeh hit,           
ol' boy?" The youth, horribly ashamed, runs away.                           
  Like the description of the soldiers on the eve of battle several         
chapters earlier, this scene shows us various types of courage, or          
lack of it.                                                                 
                                                                            
CH_9                                                                        
                              CHAPTER 9                                     
-                                                                           
  The youth found a place to walk where the tattered soldier could not      
catch up to him. But he still felt guilty about being with this             
group of wounded soldiers and not being hurt himself. He wished that        
he had a wound, a "red badge of courage."                                   
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: This is the first place in the book that the title phrase,          
"the red badge of courage," appears.                                        
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  He came alongside the ghostly soldier, who walked stiffly, and            
seemed to be looking for a place to die. Suddenly the youth recognized      
him, and screamed: "Gawd! Jim Conklin!" It was the tall soldier, his        
old friend. "Hello, Henry," the dying man replied, and explained            
that he had worried about the youth during the battle in which he           
had been wounded.                                                           
  Henry tried to put his arms around his friend, but the wounded man        
wanted to walk on his own. As they went along, a terrified look             
crossed the tall soldier's face, and he told Henry that he was              
afraid he would fall and be run over by artillery wagons. Henry             
fervently promised to make certain that that wouldn't happen. The tall      
soldier continued to beg for reassurance, saying "I've allus been a         
pretty good feller, ain't I? An' it ain't much t' ask, is it?... I'd        
do it fer you, wouldn't I, Henry?" Henry's only answer is to sob.           
But as suddenly as he had become afraid, the tall soldier seemed to         
forget his fears, and brushed Henry aside.                                  
  Then the tattered soldier, from whom Henry had run away in shame,         
came up. He told Henry that a battery was coming through, and that          
he ought to get the tall soldier off the road to safety. Henry led his      
friend into the field, when suddenly the dying man began to run. Henry      
and the tattered man chased him, but Jim kept begging to be left            
alone. As Henry and the tattered man followed, "They began to have          
thoughts of a solemn ceremony. There was something ritelike in these        
movements of the doomed soldier. And there was a resemblance in him to      
a devotee of a mad religion.... They were awed and afraid."                 
  At last, Jim stood still. Henry and the tattered man realized that        
he had found the right place. Standing up straight, his hands at his        
sides, "He was waiting with patience for something that he had come to      
meet. He was at the rendezvous." The dying man's chest began to heave.      
Again Henry tried to comfort his friend, and again Jim pushed him           
away. Then Jim began to shake. He fell down, and his "body seemed to        
bounce a little way from the earth. 'God!' said the tattered soldier."      
Henry, who had "watched, spellbound, this ceremony at the place of          
meeting," ran to his friend. Through the flap of his blue jacket,           
Henry saw that Jim's side looked "as if it had been chewed by wolves."      
Henry turned toward the battlefield, shaking his fist in fury. Above        
them, "the red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer."                     
  This chapter is the symbolic heart of The Red Badge of Courage,           
and the subject of much discussion about the novel's meaning. The           
religious imagery in this chapter is very powerful indeed. Jim's            
motions as death approaches seem "like a solemn ceremony," "ritelike,"      
and Jim resembles "a devotee of a mad religion." Some readers identify      
Jim Conklin with Jesus Christ- their initials are the same. Jim is          
described as spectral or ghostly, perhaps reminding us of the Holy          
Ghost. Like Christ, Jim has wounds on his hands and his sides. Some         
readers even think that the way Jim's body fell as he died- it "seemed      
to bounce a little way from the earth"- represents the Resurrection.        
  A strong argument for the identification of Jim with Jesus Christ is      
Jim's behavior throughout the novel. In the first chapter Jim is the        
bearer of good tidings (although they do turn out not to be true). The      
other men in the company seem to recognize his leadership. When             
Henry is upset about the coming fight, Jim is calm and                      
philosophical; he comforts Henry. He does not boast like the loud           
soldier, but he is uncomplaining and ready to take whatever comes-          
including, in this chapter, death. But even in his final moments Jim's      
concern is for others. He had worried about Henry's safety, he tells        
his friend when he meets up with him. Begging Henry to help get him         
out of the road, he cries, "I'd do it fer you."                             
  This chapter's closing line is the most famous in the novel, indeed,      
one of the most famous in all of American literature. Some people           
who have written about The Red Badge of Courage have called the line        
contrived and show-offy. Others have tried to show that Crane got           
the image of the red wafer from Rudyard Kipling's novel, The Light          
That Failed, which was published in 1891. But most critics have been        
interested in the meaning of the image, not its source. Some think          
that Crane is describing the way the sun actually looks when viewed         
through fog or (after a battle) heavy smoke- red and flat, like a           
wafer. Others believe that the comparison Crane is making is to a           
wafer of sealing wax, and that that is why he uses the word                 
"pasted." But the most debate has come from the interpretation that         
the wafer is a communion wafer. People who support this meaning also        
see Jim Conklin as a Christ figure, whose death redeems Henry.              
  In deciding what you think about the meaning of the last line, you        
might remember the last time (in Chapter 5) that an episode closed          
with an image of the sun. Then the sun streamed down beautifully            
when the battle appeared to have ended. Is there any relationship           
between that sun and this red one? (Remember that red in this novel         
has always been the color of war.) You might compare Henry's                
reaction to Jim Conklin's death to his reaction to finding the dead         
soldier in the cathedral of trees in Chapter 7. The first time he           
confronted a dead man, Henry recoiled in horror. As Jim falls, Henry        
shakes his hand in the direction of the battlefield and yells, "Hell!"      
Has this any bearing on the possibility that Jim may represent Jesus        
Christ?                                                                     
                                                                            
CH_10                                                                       
                             CHAPTER 10                                     
-                                                                           
  As this chapter opens, the young soldier and the tattered man are         
talking about Jim Conklin's death. The tattered man calls him a             
"reg'lar jim-dandy fer nerve" and wonders "where he got 'is stren'th        
from?" The youth, too upset to speak, throws himself on the ground.         
The tattered man reminds him that the tall soldier is dead and no           
longer needs help, while he "ain't enjoying any great health m'self         
these days." The young soldier is afraid that he is about to witness        
another horrible death, but the tattered man assures him that he is         
not ready to die. He calls the way the tall soldier died "th' funniest      
thing," and urges the youth to come away- "there ain't no use in our        
stayin' here an' tryin' t' ask him anything." (The youth, we remember,      
also wanted to ask a question of the dead man in Chapter 7.)                
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: In this chapter, as in Chapter 8 where he first appeared, it's      
hard to know what to make of the tattered man. The repetition of the        
phrase "tattered" makes the reader think of a jester or a clown, and        
sometimes the tattered man seems so simple as to be silly. Indeed, the      
sergeant in Chapter 8 laughed at him. But the tattered man seems            
good and innocent, proud of his fellow soldiers, fond of the                
children he mentions as the reason he isn't going to die.                   
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  As they begin to walk along the road, the tattered man tells how          
he received his wounds. He was fighting, he recalls, and a neighbor         
from home, Tom Jamison, told him that he had been shot in the head.         
Until then, he hadn't realized it. Trying to move to the rear, he           
was hit again, in the arm. The tattered man observes that the young         
soldier isn't looking well, either. "I bet yeh 've got a worser one         
than yeh think," he says solicitously. "It might be inside mostly, an'      
them plays thunder.... Yeh might have some queer kind 'a hurt               
yourself." He keeps asking, "Where is your'n located?"                      
  The youth, feeling terribly ashamed, grumbles, "Oh, don't bother          
me!" and, looking at the tattered man with hatred, goes off. The            
tattered man can't believe it. In his confused mind- he seems to be         
going into a state of shock- the young soldier has become Tom Jamison,      
and he tells him, "Yeh wanta go trompin' off with a bad hurt. It ain't      
right- now- Tom Jamison- it ain't. You wanta leave me take keer of          
yeh, Tom Jamison." Running away, the young soldier sees the tattered        
man wandering helplessly around the field.                                  
  These constant questions about where the wound is located make the        
young soldier feel terrible, and he turns in anger on the tattered          
man. Of course, Henry has no wound, and he doesn't want to be found         
out. But in a way the tattered man is right- Henry's wound is worse         
than he thinks, and it is "inside mostly, an' them plays thunder."          
Henry's wound is psychological- it is his lack of courage, his shame        
at deserting his comrades in the heat of battle.                            
  At the chapter's end Henry runs away from this wounded and suffering      
man who showed so much sympathy for him (and who would not, we              
realize, have deserted the young soldier in a time of need). The            
tattered man may be a little ridiculous, but he is kinder than              
Henry. In the closing lines the tattered soldier represents the             
society that will find out the young soldier's shame, and he                
recognizes that he "could not defend himself forever" against it- as        
if his own fellows, not the Confederates, were the enemy. He wishes he      
were dead.                                                                  
                                                                            
CH_11                                                                       
                             CHAPTER 11                                     
-                                                                           
  This chapter takes place largely in the mind of the young soldier as      
he tries to come to terms with his desertion and figure out what to do      
next. It is an impressive psychological portrait of a man at war            
with himself, struggling with his guilt. The young soldier is still         
trying to rationalize his flight, and still harbors dreams of glory,        
but for the most part he recognizes what he has done. As he walks           
along he alternates between hope and despair, self-justification and        
self-hatred.                                                                
  Seeing retreating wagons, teams, and men, Henry comforts himself; if      
everyone is retreating, he is not so bad. But then he sees a column of      
infantry marching proudly forward, and he wonders what made them so         
brave. He recognizes that "He could never be like them." But as his         
envy grows, he imagines himself a hero "leading lurid charges,"- and        
fills with plans to start for the front. But then he realizes how hard      
it would be. He has no rifle. Well, the fields are full of abandoned        
rifles, he could pick one up. He could never find his regiment.             
Well, he could fight with any regiment. If he returned, his comrades        
would realize that he had previously fled. No, they would not see           
his face in battle. Drained and paralyzed by these conflicts, he            
realizes that he is hungry, thirsty, and sore.                              
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: In the jerky, somewhat confused sentences in this chapter,          
Crane anticipates a technique of writing that was later called "stream      
of consciousness." The idea is that words and thoughts appear on the        
page just as they appear in the character's mind- not in nice, neat         
sentences, but in short, often contradictory phrases.                       
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  "A certain mothlike quality within him kept him in the vicinity of        
the battle." He wanted to know who was winning. Of course, he hoped         
for a Union victory. At the same time, he realized that a defeat might      
vindicate him. "A serious prophet upon predicting a flood should be         
the first man to climb a tree." Besides, defeats are blamed on              
generals- and usually the wrong ones, at that- not on individual            
soldiers.                                                                   
  He wanted desperately to be proved right. Otherwise, he feared he         
would "wear the sore badge of his dishonor through life." "He               
denounced himself as a villain," and imagined that he was a murderer        
of the soldiers who were brave enough to fight. Again he wished that        
he were dead.                                                               
  But in the end he could not really hope for the defeat of the             
Union army. He imagined it as a "mighty blue machine" that "would make      
victories as a contrivance turns out buttons." Realizing that his side      
would win, he began to envision his return to camp, and wondered how        
he could explain his absence to the other men. He imagined them             
laughing and pointing at him. His name would become synonymous with         
cowardice; he would become "a slang phrase."                                
  Some of the language in this chapter echoes what has gone before.         
The young soldier's perception of the advancing troops with the             
"sinuous movement of a serpent" recalls the description of the              
regiment as a "huge crawling reptile" in Chapter 2. Too, the                
familiar image of war as a machine reappears here in the reference          
to the "mighty blue machine" that turns out victories. The image of         
the young soldier as a moth makes us think of war as a flame,               
recalling his need for "blaze, blood, and danger" to discover the           
meaning of courage in Chapter 2. There is some religious language           
here, too, in the young soldier's likening himself to a "prophet," and      
his vision of the brave soldiers as "chosen beings." And of course          
"the sore badge of dishonor" is an ironic contrast to "the red badge        
of courage."                                                                
                                                                            
CH_12                                                                       
                             CHAPTER 12                                     
-                                                                           
  The column that the young soldier had seen marching so proudly to         
battle just moments before was now in wild retreat. Surrounded by           
running soldiers, the youth kept trying to find out what was going on.      
Finally he clutched one of the soldiers by the arm, and refused to let      
go. Angry and panicked, the man hit the young soldier fiercely on           
the head with the butt of his rifle.                                        
  The youth saw lightning and heard thunder. He fell down. He got up        
on his hands and knees, "like a babe trying to walk," and finally           
stood up. He was afraid to pass out in the middle of the field,             
because he might be in danger there. He decided to find a safe              
place; "He went tall soldier fashion." His wounds didn't hurt much,         
and the dripping blood felt cool and liquid. As he staggered along,         
scenes of home flashed before the young soldier's eyes. He                  
remembered meals his mother cooked, and thought about the old swimming      
hole.                                                                       
  Then he heard a "cheery voice" saying, "Yeh seem t' be in a pretty        
bad way, boy?" The owner of the voice offers to help the young soldier      
find his regiment. The youth feels much less threatened by this             
man's questions than he was by those of the tattered man. As they           
walk, the cheery-voiced man tells the youth about the confusions of         
the day's battles; everyone was fighting everywhere.                        
  As they walked along, the young soldier thought that the man with         
the cheery voice possessed "a wand of a magic kind. He threaded the         
mazes of the tangled forest.... Obstacles fell before him...." Finally      
they found the 304th New York. The man with the cheery voice grasped        
his hand warmly, and wishing him good luck, walked off. The young           
soldier realized that he had never seen the man's face- making the          
stranger seem extremely mysterious both to him and to us.                   
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: Who is this mysterious man? Is it only the young soldier who        
thinks he possesses magical powers, or are we, too, supposed to see         
him as somewhat supernatural?                                               
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  It is ironic that when the youth finally receives a wound, a red          
badge of courage, it is inflicted by the butt- not the barrel- of a         
rifle, and by a retreating soldier in a panic. The young soldier is         
wounded by a man very much like himself. Not only had he also               
retreated, but he too had been maddened and panicked by another             
man's questions. Being wounded turns the young soldier's life               
around. He falls to the ground, seeing lightning and hearing                
thunder, almost like a revelation. Then he picks himself up,                
climbing first to his hands and knees like a baby, and decides to go        
"tall soldier fashion." The suggestion in this language is that the         
wound is like an experience of conversion. In addition, the image of        
the young soldier learning to stand like a baby indicates that he           
may be beginning all over again. The phrase "tall soldier fashion" may      
mean that the young soldier is looking for the right place to die,          
as the tall soldier did, but it also suggests that the young soldier        
has learned courage from his dead friend, and now behaves the way           
Jim did. (The young soldier carries himself carefully, as the tall          
soldier did when he was wounded.)                                           
  The man with the cheery voice who befriends him talks about               
different kinds of courage. He jokes that the wounded officer they          
pass won't boast about his reputation when they begin sawing off his        
leg, but he sympathizes with him too. The story he tells about Jack,        
the man in his regiment who was killed, resembles in some way the           
story of the young soldier and the tattered man, and the young              
soldier's experience with the soldier who wounded him. Jack, too,           
would not answer another man's questions, and when he turned angrily        
to tell the questioner to go to hell, he was killed.                        
  This chapter contains striking descriptions of the chaos of the           
retreat, as well as some by now familiar imagery: war as "the red           
animal," the "blood-swollen god," the guns "shaking in black rage,"         
the opposing soldiers as "the dragon," the men in retreat as                
"terrified buffaloes." (Soldiers fighting are often described as            
machines, but in trouble or discomfort they become animals.)                
                                                                            
CH_13                                                                       
                             CHAPTER 13                                     
-                                                                           
  As he approached his regiment, the young soldier worried that he was      
about to face hostility and ridicule. He thought briefly about              
trying to hide, but he was too hungry and tired. It turned out that he      
needn't have worried. The sentry- the loud soldier, Wilson- who had         
given Henry up for dead, was delighted to see him. The young soldier        
hurriedly concocted a story about where he had been. He said that he'd      
been separated from the regiment and had been fighting on the right,        
where he had been shot in the head.                                         
  Wilson called the corporal, Simpson, to take care of Henry.               
Simpson examined his head in the firelight, running his fingers             
through Henry's hair until "his fingers came in contact with the            
splashed blood and the rare wound." He concluded that Henry had been        
grazed by a cannonball but not seriously hurt. The wound was no longer      
bleeding, he found, and "It's raised a queer lump jest as if some           
feller had lammed yeh on th' head with a club." Simpson doesn't know        
how right he is!                                                            
  When Simpson leaves him, promising to send Wilson over, Henry             
looks around. Soldiers are scattered all over, "lying deathlike in          
slumber." Across the fire, the young soldier notices an officer asleep      
with his back against a tree. The overhanging trees make the spot           
appear like a "low-arched hall," and through them Henry can see stars.      
  The description of the regiment's camp echoes the forest depicted in      
Chapter 7. There, hiding from his shame, the young soldier entered a        
cathedral-like space streaming with sunlight. In the forest                 
cathedral he had seen the decaying soldier propped up against a             
tree. Here the description is similar, but the mood is very different.      
The forest where the regiment is camped resembles a "low-arched hall,"      
and the light comes from the stars. Staring across at the young             
soldier is another man propped up against a tree, but he is only            
sleeping. And the other soldiers strewn around the fire, "lying             
deathlike," are similarly asleep. Does this suggest that the young          
soldier encountered horror when he was running away, but that when          
he returns to his responsibilities the scene is drained of horror?          
  The young soldier is welcomed warmly back into the fellowship of the      
regiment; Wilson treats him extremely kindly. (More kindly, in fact,        
than is consistent with his character as we have seen it in earlier         
chapters.) But what does it mean that the young soldier, as he falls        
asleep, is "like his comrades"? He is like them because he is sleeping      
wrapped in a blanket, but does Crane mean that he is now one of them        
again, as brave as they are? After all, we know, even if Wilson and         
Simpson don't, how Henry was separated from the regiment, and how he        
was wounded. Does that no longer matter? Or is Crane, in this               
sentence, being ironic?                                                     
                                                                            
CH_14                                                                       
                             CHAPTER 14                                     
-                                                                           
  This chapter shows how much Wilson has changed and grown up.              
Wilson helped the young soldier to dress his wound and get some             
breakfast. Wilson was a clumsy nurse, and when the youth snapped at         
him, he apologized quietly. An enormous change seemed to have come          
over Wilson, the young soldier reflected. "He was no more a loud young      
soldier.... He showed a quiet belief in his purposes and his                
abilities.... The youth wondered where had been born these new              
eyes...." The young soldier points out the change to Wilson, who            
replies, "I believe I was a pretty big fool in those days." This            
loud young soldier, so full of himself, has become calm, self-assured,      
and gentle. His growth parallels that of the young soldier.                 
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: It seems as if Wilson is almost a new person. We haven't            
seen what happened to him in the previous day's battle, because we          
were following Henry. What do you think might have happened to              
change him so? Does it seem possible to you that someone would              
become so different after only one day of fighting?                         
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  The two talk quietly about the previous day's fighting, and the           
young soldier tells Wilson about Jim Conklin's death. As the young          
soldier describes what he saw, we realize that he has seen battle,          
even if he didn't quite participate in it. Still, he talks to Wilson        
as if he really had seen fighting- "Why, lord, man, you didn't see          
nothing of the fight." That isn't precisely true. The chapter's ending      
is curious. Wilson tells the young soldier that many other men              
disappeared "Jest like you done." With the young soldier, we are            
inclined to ask, "So?" Does this mean that some really were                 
separated from the regiment by accident, or that other men deserted         
and then returned to the regiment?                                          
                                                                            
CH_15                                                                       
                             CHAPTER 15                                     
-                                                                           
  This chapter is interesting for its portrayal of the change in the        
young soldier's character. Now that both he and his secret are safe,        
he begins to take pride in the events of the previous day, seeing           
himself as brave and manly. Some soldiers ran away in terror; he            
fled with dignity. He realizes that much of what happens in battle          
is by chance, and that you can get away with a lot. He remembers            
that Wilson, too, had been afraid on the eve of the first battle,           
and handing back his friend's letters he feels a little superior to         
him. The image of a flower appears again, but now it is neither             
tents nor shells that flower, but the young soldier's confidence. Most      
of the familiar imagery in this chapter is likewise ironic. Henry's         
legs are "self-confident," he is "chosen of the gods," he has faced         
"dragons." In earlier chapters these images had real power. Now             
Crane employs the kind of high-flown language he often uses when he is      
making fun of his characters' pretensions. The young soldier                
realizes that he will be able to go home with a fine fund of war            
stories. Is Crane being ironic here? Or has the young soldier really        
learned a kind of courage? We'll find out in the next chapters.             
                                                                            
CH_16                                                                       
                             CHAPTER 16                                     
-                                                                           
  The next day the young soldier's regiment relieves troops that            
have been fighting in the trenches. Kept there for a while, some of         
the soldiers begin to criticize their leaders' hesitation. The young        
soldier, to his amazement, hears himself complaining that everything        
is the general's fault- "Don't we do all that men can?" Another             
soldier asks him whether he thinks he fought the whole battle               
yesterday. Instantly the young soldier is terrified: the question           
"pierced" him, and his legs "quaked," almost as if he were in battle        
again. But the other man didn't know the truth. The youth relaxed, but      
in response "He suddenly became a modest person."                           
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: The word pierced suggests that the other soldier's question is      
almost like a bullet, reminding us of the end of Chapter 10 where           
the young soldier begins to feel that the scorn of his comrades, not        
the Confederate soldiers, is the real enemy. And it's interesting that      
his legs are quaking now, because the feeling of his legs is always an      
indication of how brave or frightened the young soldier feels.              
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  This chapter, too, reveals the young soldier's developing character.      
Before the first battle he had been preoccupied with the question of        
whether he would run from fire (although he also complained to Jim          
Conklin about the commanders). This time he boasts about the                
regiment's bravery, and is critical of the generals, even though he         
knows exactly how brave he himself had been. Shame and fear shut him        
up for awhile, but soon he begins to grouse again. The young soldier        
is still struggling with himself.                                           
                                                                            
CH_17                                                                       
                             CHAPTER 17                                     
-                                                                           
  In this chapter the young soldier who has pretended to be a hero          
really becomes one. But, interestingly enough, Crane describes his          
heroism almost entirely in terms of animals. The young soldier, in his      
anger at the enemy, feels like a "kitten," and thinks he will               
develop teeth and claws. He yells back at Wilson with "a curlike            
snarl," and as he looks around him, "the fighters resembled animals         
tossed for a death struggle into a dark pit." He chases after the           
retreating enemy like a "dog," and at the end of the battle the             
lieutenant calls him a "wild cat." Finally, as he thinks about the          
battle, he realizes that he has fought like a "beast." One meaning          
of these images seems to be that the young soldier has fought like a        
hero through animal instinct, another might be that real heroism in         
warfare does not resemble the young soldier's pretty dreams, but is in      
fact bestial. The religious imagery in this chapter backs up this           
idea. The youth has been a "barbarian," and has "fought like a pagan        
who defends his religion." The youth's heroism has a psychological          
explanation as well: his exhaustion has turned to a blind fury at           
the enemy, and he has been so angry he could barely think.                  
  At the end of this chapter the sun again appears. As before, it           
reflects the young soldier's mood. No longer a red wafer, this sun          
is "bright and gay," and the sky is "blue, enameled."                       
                                                                            
CH_18                                                                       
                             CHAPTER 18                                     
-                                                                           
  Several incidents in this chapter remind us of events that have           
occurred elsewhere in the novel. The death of Jimmie Rogers, thrashing      
about in the grass, reminds us of the similar death of Jim Conklin,         
although Jim did not scream the way Jimmie does.                            
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: The descriptions of the deaths of Jim Conklin and Jimmie            
Rogers do not seem all that horrible to us. We see worse every time we      
go to the movies or watch the news on TV. But death had never before        
been described this realistically in an American novel. Many readers        
at the time were shocked and disturbed by passages like this.               
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  The "jangling general" who almost runs over a wounded man                 
resembles the way the men who were carrying the wounded officer bumped      
into the dying Jim Conklin. The young soldier has overheard officers        
twice before. Once he heard the "gigantic" colonel who was silhouetted      
against the sky in Chapter 2 talk with an aide about cigars. Then           
during his flight in Chapter 6 he encountered another general, this         
one surrounded by a "jingling staff." He thought that he would tell         
that general what was really going on. He had heard him send in             
reinforcements, and express delight that the center had held while          
he bounced around in his saddle.                                            
  The encounter with the general in this chapter is slightly                
different. This time the youth's vision is somewhat more realistic.         
And what he hears is even more disillusioning than the exchange             
about the cigars. He realizes that the officers think very little of        
the 304th; the men have been proud of the way they'd been fighting,         
but the officer calls them "mule drivers" and says that he can              
easily spare them. Neither the officer nor the general seems to care        
that many men of the 304th will die in the coming assault. Fleming's        
thought that "New eyes were given to him. And the most startling thing      
was to learn suddenly that he was very insignificant" sounds identical      
to his meditation in Chapter 14 on the way battle had changed his           
friend Wilson. "The youth wondered where had been born these new            
eyes.... Apparently, the other had now climbed a peak of wisdom from        
which he could perceive himself as a very wee thing." The unimportance      
of the individual appears to be an important lesson of war, contrary        
to romantic daydreams where individual heroes triumph. The young            
soldier had hoped to hear "some great inner historical things."             
Perhaps he really did.                                                      
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: The theme of understanding things better and seeing more            
clearly is pursued in several ways. Because Henry and Wilson leave the      
fighting in which they have up until now been engaged, they are able        
to see the layout of the whole battle. They notice a road, a battery        
of guns, and a house whose windows glowed "a deep murder red."              
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
                                                                            
CH_19                                                                       
                             CHAPTER 19                                     
-                                                                           
  This chapter repeats the theme of courage as bestial instinct. The        
young soldier is described running "as if pursued for a murder," his        
eyes have "a lurid glare," his features are "red and inflamed," and he      
looked "insane." Even the red badge of courage makes the young soldier      
look a little crazy. Henry is in the advance of his regiment, but           
"unconsciously." The soldiers rush in a "frenzy," "moblike and              
barbaric," with "mad enthusiasm," in a "delirium." Only when this           
feeling subsides do they become men again.                                  
  The narrator makes a number of statements in this chapter, most of        
them about this frenzied fighting. Previously the narrative voice           
has described only characters- usually a bit ironically- not                
actions. But now the narrator says that this enthusiasm and delirium        
is a "sublime absence of selfishness," presumably one of the                
definitions of courage. Later the narrator adds that the men's "lack        
of a certain feeling of responsibility for being there" was "the            
dominant animal failing." When the young soldier charges forward            
again, he runs "like a madman," his mouth dripping saliva.                  
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: The major battles of the Civil War, such as                         
Chancellorsville, consisted of many small skirmishes like the ones          
Henry participated in. As we see in these chapters, the blue                
soldiers and the gray soldiers engage, retreat, rest, and clash again.      
Eventually one group or the other wins, and the battle is over.             
  Even during World War II that was what war was like. But in our           
day war has become very different. The opposing sides don't always          
wear uniforms; in fact, the enemy may be civilians, not soldiers.           
There may not be fixed battles where a line of soldiers charges, but        
the constant sniping of guerillas instead. And it isn't always clear        
when an engagement is over, or who has won or lost.                         
  What would it mean to be courageous in a modern war? Do you think         
that Stephen Crane's definition of courage- not thinking of yourself        
and acting on instinct- makes any sense for the kinds of wars we            
have today?                                                                 
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  The young soldier's rush to rescue the falling flag is, of course, a      
courageous act. Yet his feeling of love for the flag, and his               
personification of it as "a goddess... a woman, red and white,              
hating and loving," seems to be the kind of romantic dream that he has      
begun to move beyond. Still, the details of the dying soldier's             
death grip on the flagpole, and his hand on Wilson's shoulder, provide      
a realistic, even macabre finish to this romantic episode.                  
                                                                            
CH_20                                                                       
                             CHAPTER 20                                     
-                                                                           
  In this part of the battle the young soldier acts extremely bravely,      
trying to halt the retreat by encouraging the men, and then by raising      
the flag high.                                                              
  The images are all somewhat familiar. The regiment is likened to a        
machine running down, and also to an animal "vicious" and                   
"wolflike." It is also compared to a broom, an image that was used          
in Chapter 18 when the officer "spoke of the regiment as if he              
referred to a broom. Some part of the woods needed sweeping,                
perhaps, and he merely indicated a broom in a tone properly                 
indifferent to its fate." Now the unimportant broom has become              
terribly aggressive as the young soldier thinks to himself "that if         
the enemy was about to swallow the regimental broom as a large              
prisoner, it could at least have the consolation of going down with         
bristles forward." The image of the young lieutenant as a baby is also      
familiar. In Chapter 19, for example, there is reference to his             
"infantile features" and the "soft and childlike curve" of his lips.        
                                                                            
CH_21                                                                       
                             CHAPTER 21                                     
-                                                                           
  When the enemy troops pulled back, the 304th regiment returned to         
its own lines. But to their surprise, the veterans who were waiting         
there made fun of them. "Goin' home now, boys?" The youth was furious,      
and some of the men challenged the veterans to fights, but most of          
them hung their heads. As the youth looked around, he realized that         
they had not in fact covered much ground, and that the engagement           
had not lasted very long. He was annoyed at his comrades, although          
he took pleasure in the way he had conducted himself.                       
  The general who had called them mule drivers galloped up, and             
began to yell at Colonel MacChesnay. "If your men had gone a hundred        
feet farther you would have made a great charge, but as it is- what         
a lot of mud diggers you've got anyway!" The colonel seemed ready to        
argue with him, but instead he shrugged his shoulders and said that         
they had fought as well as they could. The lieutenant insisted to           
the colonel that the boys had put up a good fight, but the colonel          
brushed him away.                                                           
  Fleming and Wilson were talking together when another soldier came        
up to tell them that Lieutenant Hasbrouck had praised them both to the      
colonel. The colonel had asked who carried the flag, and the                
lieutenant had told him "That's Flemin', an' he's a jim-hickey." He         
added that Wilson had headed the charge the whole time. "They               
deserve t' be major generals," the colonel said. The two delighted          
friends thought that both the colonel and the lieutenant were               
terrific.                                                                   
                                                                            
CH_22                                                                       
                             CHAPTER 22                                     
-                                                                           
  This chapter is a portrait of two armies at war. As the flag bearer,      
the youth observed the next phase of the battle almost as a spectator.      
He saw two regiments slugging it out together as if they were               
playing a game; another regiment marched proudly into the woods,            
made an enormous racket, and marched just as proudly out. On the            
left there was "a long row of guns, gruff and maddened, denouncing the      
enemy"; their "red discharges" formed a "crimson flare." The gray           
soldiers drew back, and the blue ones cheered. For a minute all was         
quiet and "churchlike."                                                     
  Suddenly the noise began again, "the whirring and thumping of             
gigantic machinery." The men surged at each other. The youth saw            
some gray soldiers "go in houndlike leaps" toward the blue ones;            
they "went away with a vast mouthful of prisoners." Then a "blue wave"      
dashed against a "gray obstruction," while the flags flew like              
"crimson foam." The regiment occasionally let forth "barbaric               
cries," and the lieutenant kept inventing new oaths.                        
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: This is the language we have come to recognize. The guns speak      
("denouncing"), the brave soldiers are like animals ("houndlike") or        
savages ("barbaric cries"). Religious imagery appears too; the              
occasional silence is "churchlike." You can almost imagine what this        
would look like as a painting- the blue waves dashing against gray          
rocks, with crimson foam splashing. In this comparison of the battle        
to a sea, Crane suggests that war is a force of nature.                     
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
-                                                                           
  The enemy soldiers took shelter behind a fence, and the regiment          
battered against it. Many of them remembering that the general had          
called them mud diggers tried especially hard to get rid of the             
Confederates. The youth imagined his dead body in the middle of the         
field as proof to the general that the regiment had fought well. The        
lieutenant appeared to be on "his last box of oaths," and Wilson            
looked frazzled and dirty. The regiment seemed to be foundering.            
                                                                            
CH_23                                                                       
                             CHAPTER 23                                     
-                                                                           
  In this chapter the youth, his friend, and the regiment all behave        
extremely bravely. For all of them the heroic activity is automatic         
("there was no obvious questioning, nor figurings, nor diagrams"). All      
display the frenzy, enthusiasm, and unselfishness praised by the            
narrator in Chapter 19. There is a suggestion of barbarism in the           
youth's feeling "like a savage, religion-mad" (we remember that in          
Chapter 17 he had fought "like a pagan who defends his religion")           
and in his vision of the Confederate flag as a "treasure of                 
mythology." He feels a "wild battle madness." The description of the        
regiment's final thrust at the Confederate soldiers, "racing as if          
to achieve a sudden success before an exhilarating fluid should             
leave them," has an almost sexual suggestion.                               
  This is also a chapter of vivid color. The men "in dusty and              
tattered blue" rush "over a green sward and under a sapphire sky,"          
while the youth "kept the bright colors to the front." The Confederate      
flag has a "red brilliancy."                                                
  The regiment takes four prisoners. One nursed a wounded foot, and         
swore at the blue soldiers as if someone had stepped on his foot            
accidentally. Another, a young boy, seemed composed, and talked             
cheerfully with his captors. The third looked sad and said no more          
than "Ah, go t' hell!" The fourth was silent, and seemed to be              
overwhelmed by shame. The attitudes of these Confederate prisoners          
greatly resemble those of the Union soldiers, a closing irony.              
-                                                                           
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
  NOTE: We don't meet many Confederate soldiers in The Red Badge of         
Courage, but whenever we do they seem to be very much like Henry and        
his buddies. Can you think of any time in the novel when any of the         
soldiers have talked or thought about why they're fighting, or what         
the war is about? What does this say about Crane's view of wars in          
general and the Civil War in particular?                                    
---------------------------------------------------------------------       
                                                                            
CH_24                                                                       
                             CHAPTER 24                                     
-                                                                           
  As the regiment, having won its skirmish, withdraws, Henry Fleming        
evaluates his experiences in battle and recognizes that he has              
achieved "a quiet manhood." Religious imagery is at work here. At           
first the young soldier recalls his heroism, and "saw that he was           
good"- an echo of God's assessment of creation in Genesis 1:31 ("And        
God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good").      
But eventually the youth rejects his "earlier gospels." So doing, he        
is able to put the shame of his desertion and the "sin" of his              
abandonment of the tattered soldier behind him. Flowers appear              
again, in the line "scars faded as flowers"; and we see the purple and      
gold of Henry's vanity and the "red of blood and black of passion."         
Henry rids himself of the "red sickness of battle."                         
  Throughout The Red Badge of Courage the young soldier has tried to        
understand death. In Chapter 3 he seemed to want to ask a question          
of the dead soldier in the yellow suit. In Chapter 7 he exchanged a         
long look with the dead soldier in the forest. And in Chapter 10 the        
tattered man tells him that the dead Jim Conklin isn't going to tell        
him anything. But by the battle's end Henry understands what death          
means. "He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after         
all, it was but the great death."                                           
  As the young soldier takes stock of himself, conversation swirls          
around him. Someone praises the young lieutenant: "Hasbrouck? He's th'      
best off'cer in this here reg'ment." Bill Smithers- whose hand was          
stepped on back in Chapter 2 but who wouldn't let the doctor                
amputate his fingers- is quoted as saying that life in the hospital,        
which is shelled every night, is much more dangerous than fighting. As      
he has all along, Smithers is malingering, acting like a coward. Henry      
had been afraid that the other soldiers would laugh at him if they          
found out the story of his flight. But although they laugh at               
Smithers, it's with affection. Smithers laughs at himself; his              
cowardice is not a terrible shame.                                          
  The nature imagery with which the chapter ends supports the               
message of redemption carried by the religious imagery. The young           
soldier can't wait to see fresh meadows and cool brooks (although some      
readers point out that the peacefulness of nature was decisively            
rejected in Chapter 8). At the close of the book the sun, ever the          
mirror of Henry's feelings, breaks through the heavy clouds.                
                                                                            
TESTS_AND_ANSWERS                                                           
                            A STEP BEYOND                                   
                          TESTS AND ANSWERS                 (CREDTEST)      
-                                                                           
                                TESTS                                       
-                                                                           
  TEST 1                                                                    
-                                                                           
  _____  1. The specific Civil War battle that is recounted in the          
            novel is                                                        
-                                                                           
            A. the Battle of Bull Run                                       
            B. the Battle of Gettysburg                                     
            C. not identified                                               
-                                                                           
  _____  2. Stephen Crane refrains from naming many of his characters       
            in order to                                                     
-                                                                           
            A. stimulate the reader's creativity                            
            B. lend universality to his work                                
            C. maintain the unpredictability of the novel                   
-                                                                           
  _____  3. Henry's mother had                                              
-                                                                           
            A. discouraged him from enlisting                               
            B. encouraged him to serve his country with pride               
            C. refrained from stating an opinion about enlistment           
-                                                                           
  _____  4. In giving advice, Henry's mother told him                       
-                                                                           
            I. never to shirk his duty                                      
           II. to avoid liquor                                              
          III. not to curse                                                 
-                                                                           
            A. I and II only                                                
            B. II and III only                                              
            C. I, II, and III                                               
-                                                                           
  _____  5. When the veterans told stories of war, Henry                    
-                                                                           
            A. discounted their boasting                                    
            B. was boggle-eyed with excitement                              
            C. tried to act blase and pay no attention                      
-                                                                           
  _____  6. When Henry heard that his regiment would be going into          
            combat, he asked                                                
-                                                                           
            A. "Think any of the boys 'll run?"                             
            B. "Do they outnumber us?"                                      
            C. "Do I have time to write to my Mom?"                         
-                                                                           
  _____  7. Some critics suggest there is religious symbolism in            
-                                                                           
            A. Henry's self-pity                                            
            B. the lieutenant's reference to the Ten Commandments           
            C. Jim Conklin's name and his wounds                            
-                                                                           
  _____  8. When Henry said that he was "about to be measured," he          
            was referring to the                                            
-                                                                           
            A. issuance of Army uniforms                                    
            B. testing of his bravery                                       
            C. questioning of his loyalty to the Union                      
-                                                                           
  _____  9. After the first bloody battle, Henry was                        
-                                                                           
            A. driven to despair                                            
            B. bleeding, exhausted, and depressed                           
            C. somewhat pleased with himself                                
-                                                                           
  _____ 10. Prior to the first battle, Henry was                            
-                                                                           
            A. plagued by self-doubt                                        
            B. convinced that he might be a medal winner                    
            C. fatalistic about his ability to survive                      
-                                                                           
  11. What is the meaning of the title, The Red Badge of Courage?           
-                                                                           
  12. What is the meaning of courage in this book?                          
-                                                                           
  13. How does the character of the young soldier change in the course      
of the novel?                                                               
-                                                                           
  14. What is the role of nature in The Red Badge of Courage?               
-                                                                           
  15. At the close of The Red Badge of Courage, the young soldier           
tells himself that "he was a man." Is he right? Why or why not?             
-                                                                           
  TEST 2                                                                    
-                                                                           
  _____  1. When Henry deserted the battle and fled, his fears              
-                                                                           
            A. diminished                                                   
            B. were magnified                                               
            C. remained as potent as they had been                          
-                                                                           
  _____  2. As Henry marched along with the wounded soldiers, he            
-                                                                           
            A. envied them                                                  
            B. felt pity for them                                           
            C. felt pride in being associated with them                     
-                                                                           
  _____  3. The truly amazing thing about Jim Conklin was                   
-                                                                           
            A. the manner of his death                                      
            B. his Southern drawl, considering that he came from            
               Pennsylvania                                                 
            C. his ability to win the love of his enemies                   
-                                                                           
  _____  4. Henry distinguished himself from others who had deserted        
            the battle, thinking that                                       
-                                                                           
            A. "he had fled with discretion and dignity"                    
            B. "they would never be able to hold up their heads again"      
            C. "there was nothing so hideous as possessing a faint          
               heart"                                                       
-                                                                           
  _____  5. When Wilson had expected to die, he                             
-                                                                           
            A. knelt in the woods to offer a tearful prayer                 
            B. gave Henry a packet of letters for safekeeping               
            C. asked the others to excuse his show of fear                  
-                                                                           
  _____  6. Henry overheard one of the generals referring to his men        
            in a derogatory fashion as                                      
-                                                                           
            A. mule drivers                                                 
            B. senseless sheep                                              
            C. vacant-eyed camels                                           
-                                                                           
  _____  7. Henry received his "battle wound" from                          
-                                                                           
            A. an officer who labeled him a deserter                        
            B. a retreating infantryman from his own army                   
            C. a stray bullet                                               
-                                                                           
  _____  8. Henry and Wilson won praise for                                 
-                                                                           
            A. aiding the wounded while under fire                          
            B. infiltrating the enemy's lines                               
            C. bravery in carrying the flag                                 
-                                                                           
  _____  9. It is reasonable to describe The Red Badge of Courage as        
-                                                                           
            A. an exultation of regionalism                                 
            B. a voyage of self-discovery                                   
            C. an analysis of the militaristic spirit                       
-                                                                           
  _____ 10. "And the youth saw that ever after it would be easier to        
            live in his friend's neighborhood" is a reference to            
-                                                                           
            A. Jim Conklin's willingness to sacrifice himself               
            B. the considerable change in Wilson's behavior                 
            C. the tattered man's genuine attempt to comfort Henry          
               Fleming                                                      
-                                                                           
  11. What role does the loud soldier play in the novel?                    
-                                                                           
  12. Is The Red Badge of Courage a Christian allegory of                   
redemption? Why or why not?                                                 
-                                                                           
  13. Is The Red Badge of Courage a naturalistic novel?                     
-                                                                           
  14. Is The Red Badge of Courage a Civil War novel? Or is it about         
any war, or even any battle with yourself?                                  
-                                                                           
  15. How would The Red Badge of Courage be different if Stephen Crane      
had written it today? Could you write a novel like The Red Badge of         
Courage about the Vietnam War, for example, or some other modern war?       
-                                                                           
                               ANSWERS                                      
-                                                                           
  TEST 1                                                                    
-                                                                           
  1. C     2. B     3. A     4. C     5. A     6. A     7. C                
  8. B     9. C    10. A                                                    
-                                                                           
  11. The young soldier, Henry Fleming, uses the phrase, "the red           
badge of courage," in Chapter 8. By it he means a wound. He wishes          
he had one so that he would look like, and be, a real soldier. He           
thinks that being wounded in battle proves that you are courageous.         
  But when Henry is actually wounded in Chapter 12 it is by                 
accident. He is hit on the head by a Union soldier in panic-stricken        
retreat. Neither Henry nor the soldier who wounds him has been              
courageous. But Henry's bloody head makes the other soldiers accept         
him when he returns to camp in Chapter 13. They believe that he has         
been fighting with another regiment, even though the lump on his            
head looks like just what it is. And even Henry begins to pretend to        
himself that he has been courageous after all.                              
  Ironically, when Henry shows real courage in battle, in Chapters          
17-23, he is not wounded. The real badge of courage is inside, and the      
proof of courage is deeds.                                                  
  The title tells us that this book is about the difference between         
what courage looks like and what it really is. (See "Themes.")              
-                                                                           
  12. To understand the meaning of courage in this book, look at the        
behavior of characters who are courageous. One of these is Jim              
Conklin, the tall soldier. Before the battle in Chapter 3 he is not         
afraid that he will run away, and he expects to do what the rest of         
the regiment does. He follows orders and remains calm. (Henry, in           
contrast, is very frightened.) In Chapter 9 Jim faces death                 
matter-of-factly. He does not complain about his wounds. Even though        
he is in pain, he is worried about Henry's safety.                          
  When Henry becomes courageous during the second day's battle (in          
Chapters 17, 19, and 23) he does not think about himself or about           
danger. He does what has to be done. He is in a frenzy, like an animal      
or a savage. During the final charge in Chapter 23 the whole                
regiment behaves this way.                                                  
  The next thing to look for is what the narrator says about                
courage. Although the narrator rarely makes comments, he does so in         
Chapter 17 when he says that courage is "a temporary but sublime            
absence of selfishness." (See "Themes.")                                    
-                                                                           
  13. Look at the way the young soldier behaves from chapter to             
chapter. When he joins the army in Chapter 1 he is full of romantic         
dreams and enjoys playing soldier. In Chapter 2 he is gripped by the        
fear that he will run away from the battle. After he does so, his           
thoughts are dominated by rationalizations (Chapters 6 and 7). In           
Chapters 8-12 Henry's fear turns to shame, and the shame leads him          
to abandon the tattered soldier. After he returns to his regiment,          
relief makes him overconfident and obnoxious (Chapter 15). But in           
the end he fights courageously (Chapters 17, 19, 20, and 23). As the        
novel comes to a close, he can realistically evaluate his behavior,         
recognizing both the good and the bad. So Henry changes from being          
fearful and romantic to understanding what war is, and having               
confidence in his abilities. He becomes neither over- nor                   
underconfident. He learns to face who he is honestly. And by the end        
of the book he has learned a concern for his fellows that he did not        
have in the beginning.                                                      
  Or you might believe that the young soldier's character does not          
change during the course of the book. You might look for behavior that      
proves that he doesn't know himself very well, and that his dreams          
of peace are as romantic as his early dreams of war. (See "The              
Characters.")                                                               
-                                                                           
  14. Look for descriptions of nature in the novel. They are frequent.      
Generally, nature is described as being indifferent to war and the          
affairs of men. The beauty of nature contrasts with the horrors of          
war. (Notice, for example, the description of the sun at the end of         
Chapter 5.)                                                                 
  After the young soldier has run from the first battle, he goes            
into the woods, thinking that the sight of trees will make him feel         
better. When he throws a pine cone at a squirrel and the animal             
scampers off, he thinks that nature agrees with him, and that the           
law of nature is to protect yourself. He does not notice an animal          
diving into a swamp and coming up with a fish in its teeth. The real        
law of nature is eat or be eaten. In the heart of the forest Henry          
comes face to face with a dead soldier whose body is decayed and            
returning to the forest. That, too, is the law of nature.                   
  But although Crane seems to be saying that nature doesn't care about      
people, Henry continues to feel that nature mirrors his moods.              
Trying to get out of the forest in Chapter 8, he thinks the brambles        
hold him back. And the way the sun looks in the sky usually tells us        
how Henry is feeling. It is blood red in Chapter 9 after Jim dies; gay      
and bright after Henry's successful fighting in Chapter 17; and it          
breaks through the clouds when he comes to terms with himself at the        
end of Chapter 24.                                                          
-                                                                           
  15. Think about what makes a person mature or manly. Then think           
about the way Henry's character has changed during the course of the        
novel. (See "The Characters" and the answer to Question 3.) If you          
agree with Henry, you would argue that he has become a man because: he      
has given up his dreams of glory; learned that he is part of a              
whole; fought with real courage; looked upon the great death; and           
stopped seeing himself as either a hero or a coward, but as somebody        
who has a little of both in him.                                            
  If you disagree with Henry, you would say that he has not really          
become a man because: his feelings about the flag (Chapter 19) are          
as silly and romantic as anything he thought before he joined the           
army; he tends to present himself as surer of things than he really is      
(as in Chapter 15); his performance during the second battle comes          
from animal instinct, not from his individual character, and his            
view of nature in Chapter 24 denies his experience in the forest in         
Chapter 7.                                                                  
-                                                                           
  TEST 2                                                                    
-                                                                           
  1. B     2. A     3. A     4. A     5. B     6. A     7. B                
  8. C     9. B    10. B                                                    
-                                                                           
  11. Read the section on "The Characters" and look at the places in        
the novel where the loud soldier appears, for examples of his               
behavior.                                                                   
  The loud soldier helps us to evaluate Henry's behavior by                 
providing us with an example of another young soldier. At first the         
loud soldier doesn't seem to be frightened by the approaching battle        
(Chapters 1 and 2). But just before the fighting begins we see that he      
thinks he's going to die (Chapter 3). This shows us that like the           
young soldier, he is really worried, and it lets us know that Henry is      
typical of other young men.                                                 
  The loud soldier is apparently changed by battle, because when we         
meet him again in Chapter 13 he is kind and calm. In Chapter 14             
Henry notices that the loud soldier (who is now called "the friend")        
has come to a better understanding of his importance in the world. The      
loud soldier's maturation prepares us for a similar change in Henry.        
When the loud soldier fights courageously at Henry's side in the            
closing chapters of the book, it shows us, again, that Henry is not so      
unusual.                                                                    
-                                                                           
  12. Read the section on "The Critics," the discussion of Jim Conklin      
in "The Characters," and look closely at the analysis of Chapter 9          
in "The Story."                                                             
  Some readers have seen The Red Badge of Courage as a story about          
Christian redemption. They see the red sun pasted in the sky like a         
wafer at the end of Chapter 9 as a symbol of the communion wafer,           
and Jim Conklin, whose initials are J.C., as a symbol of Jesus Christ.      
They say that Jim's death redeems Henry's sin in running away and sets      
him on the path to salvation.                                               
  To argue in favor of this position, use the details provided in           
the discussion of Chapter 9. These include Jim's character, his             
initials, his wounds, and the description of his death as "ritelike."       
  To argue against, you could say that not all of the details about         
Jim fit. Does his body bouncing a little way off the ground as he dies      
really mean the resurrection? Also, Jim is described as looking like        
"a devotee of a mad religion"- which couldn't be Christianity. In           
addition, courage is described as being animal-like or pagan, not           
Christian. So as Henry becomes courageous, he is becoming less              
Christian, not more. You could also argue that the sun really looks         
red through smoke, and that the sun in Chapter 9, like the suns in          
Chapters 5, 17, and 24, only echoes Henry's mood, which in this case        
is awful. Finally, if you read the section on "The Author and His           
Times," you will see that Stephen Crane was the son, grandson, and          
nephew of Methodist clergymen. What would a Methodist have to do            
with communion wafers?                                                      
-                                                                           
  13. Naturalism is a belief that people are powerless and that             
their lives are controlled by heredity and/or environment (including        
the economy). Naturalists see man as having an animal nature. They          
tend to be amoral (without morality) unsentimental, frank, and              
objective.                                                                  
  Does The Red Badge of Courage fit any of these descriptions? To some      
extent it does. Crane frequently describes war as an animal or a            
machine. Individual soldiers are also described as animals and              
machines, they lose their identity in the group. Heroic behavior is         
shown to be instinctive (and animal at that). Henry Fleming doesn't         
have much choice in what happens to him. He thinks of the regiment          
as a "moving box" (Chapter 2) that traps him. Nature is shown to be         
indifferent to what happens to men. Some of the descriptions of             
death and battle are quite graphic and upsetting.                           
  But The Red Badge of Courage is not a totally naturalistic novel.         
Henry is shown as having some choice (in going back to the regiment,        
for example). The example of Bill Smithers (see "The Characters")           
shows that he could have gone to the hospital. Some descriptions are        
frank, but others are not; the soldiers do not use profanity. And           
the end of the book tends to be somewhat hopeful, which most                
naturalistic novels are not.                                                
-                                                                           
  14. The Red Badge of Courage takes place during the Battle of             
Chancellorsville in May 1863, but Crane gives very little detail about      
the Civil War. In fact, he never tells us straight out the name of the      
battle Henry is fighting in. We can figure it out only by putting some      
clues (like the name of the river in Chapter 16) together. He               
doesn't tell us the names of the sides, only the colors of their            
uniforms. He doesn't tell us when the action is taking place. And he        
doesn't even tell us where Henry is from, although again we can figure      
it out from hints.                                                          
  By calling his characters "the young soldier," "the tall soldier,"        
"the loud soldier," "the tattered man," and so on, Crane seems to           
suggest that they are types, not individuals. This is a story about         
human behavior, not about these particular people. So you cannot            
really call The Red Badge of Courage a Civil War novel.                     
  You could even say that The Red Badge of Courage isn't really             
about war at all. The important thing that happens in this book is          
that Henry works his way through romantic dreams, fear, self-delusion,      
and shame to become genuinely brave and to reach a realistic view of        
himself and his place in the world. You could say that this is what it      
means to grow up, and that other people growing up go through the same      
stages, whether or not they are soldiers. Someone could grow up in the      
course of a crisis or an exciting adventure, for example.                   
-                                                                           
  15. If you believe that courage is still possible in modern wars,         
you could say that you could write a novel like The Red Badge of            
Courage about the Vietnam War. It would have to be about a young            
soldier growing up in the course of the war, and learning what it           
means to be brave. (It might mean something different than it did to        
Henry.) If you don't believe that courage exists in modern war, you         
would have to answer no. You might say that you could write a novel         
about the Vietnam War, but it would be much more bitter and cynical         
than The Red Badge of Courage. Or the hero might not be a soldier, but      
a doctor or a civilian injured.                                             
                                                                            
TERM_PAPER_IDEAS                                                            
                          TERM PAPER IDEAS                  (CREDTERM)      
-                                                                           
  1. Henry Fleming: hero or coward?                                         
-                                                                           
  2. Does Henry Fleming have a will of his own?                             
-                                                                           
  3. Henry Fleming's romantic dreams.                                       
-                                                                           
  4. Does Henry Fleming really change?                                      
-                                                                           
  5. Is Henry Fleming a typical soldier or a typical human being?           
-                                                                           
  6. The role of other characters (Mrs. Fleming, Jim Conklin, Bill          
Smithers, Lieutenant Hasbrouck, and the tattered man) in The Red Badge      
of Courage.                                                                 
-                                                                           
  7. What is courage?                                                       
-                                                                           
  8. The courageous woman. Can a woman show courage, in Stephen             
Crane's terms, or is it reserved for men? Does Mrs. Fleming show            
courage?                                                                    
-                                                                           
  9. War as a test of character in The Red Badge of Courage.                
-                                                                           
  10. Fantasies and realities of war in The Red Badge of Courage.           
-                                                                           
  11. Read an account in a history book of the Battle of                    
Chancellorsville and compare it to The Red Badge of Courage.                
-                                                                           
  12. Imagery (i.e., animal, mechanical, religious, sun, color) in The      
Red Badge of Courage.                                                       
-                                                                           
  13. Divide the chapters of The Red Badge of Courage into four             
quarters that make sense to you and defend the pattern you come up          
with.                                                                       
-                                                                           
  14. How are the first and last chapters different from the others?        
-                                                                           
  15. What is the effect of Crane's use of short paragraphs?                
-                                                                           
  16. The Red Badge of Courage as a naturalistic or realistic novel.        
-                                                                           
  17. The Red Badge of Courage as a religious allegory.                     
-                                                                           
  18. The psychological realism of The Red Badge of Courage.                
-                                                                           
  19. Read some of Stephen Crane's newspaper reporting and compare its      
style to The Red Badge of Courage.                                          
-                                                                           
  20. Read some poems by Stephen Crane, especially the famous "War          
Is Kind." How do Crane's poetic styles and subjects compare with those      
of The Red Badge of Courage?                                                
                                                                            
CRITICS                                                                     
                             THE CRITICS                    (CREDCRIT)      
-                                                                           
  Henry's regeneration is brought about by the death of Jim Conklin...      
but there are unmistakable hints... that he is intended to represent        
Jesus Christ.... Crane intended to suggest here the sacrificial             
death celebrated in communion... the wafer signifies the sacramental        
blood and body of Christ, and the process of his spiritual rebirth          
begins at this moment when the wafer-like sun appears in the sky. It        
is a symbol of salvation through death.                                     
                                   Robert Stallman, "Introduction" to       
                                       The Red Badge of Courage, 1951       
-                                                                           
  If we were to seek a geometrical shape to picture the significant         
form of The Red Badge, it would not be the circle, the L, or the            
straight line of oscillation between selfishness and salvation, but         
the equilateral triangle. Its three points are instinct, ideals, and        
circumstance. Henry Fleming runs along the sides like a squirrel in         
a track. Ideals take him along one side until circumstance confronts        
him with danger. Then instinct takes over and he dashes down the third      
side in a panic. The panic abates somewhat as he approaches the             
angle of ideals, and as he turns the corner (continuing his flight) he      
busily rationalizes to accommodate those ideals.... Then he runs on to      
the line of circumstance, and he moves again toward instinct. He is         
always controlled on one line, along which he is both drawn and             
impelled by the two other forces.                                           
                                                  Charles C. Walcutt,       
                 American Literary Naturalism: A Divided Stream, 1956       
-                                                                           
  Thus The Red Badge of Courage, which is something of a tour de force      
as a novel and which is chiefly noted for the advance it marks in           
the onset of realism on the American literary scene, is                     
transmongrified into a religious allegory.... Observe, too, that the        
evidence for this thesis is drawn, not from a study of the narrative        
progression of Crane's novel as a whole, but from a single image and        
the amalgam of the initials of the tall soldier's name with the name        
of Jesus Christ....                                                         
                                                         Philip Rahv,       
                         "Fiction and the Criticism of Fiction," 1956       
-                                                                           
  Crane's magnum opus shows up the nature and value of courage. The         
heroic ideal is not what it has been claimed to be: so largely is it        
the product of instinctive responses to biological and traditional          
forces. But man does have will, and he has the ability to reflect, and      
though these do not guarantee that he can effect his own destiny, they      
do enable him to become responsible to some degree for the honesty          
of his personal vision.                                                     
                                               Stanley B. Greenfield,       
                               "The Unmistakable Stephen Crane," 1958       
                                                                            
ADVISORY_BOARD                                                              
                           ADVISORY BOARD                   (CREDADVB)      
-                                                                           
  We wish to thank the following educators who helped us focus our          
Book Notes series to meet student needs and critiqued our                   
manuscripts to provide quality materials.                                   
-                                                                           
  Murray Bromberg, Principal                                                
  Wang High School of Queens, Holliswood, New York                          
-                                                                           
  Sandra Dunn, English Teacher                                              
  Hempstead High School, Hempstead, New York                                
-                                                                           
  Lawrence J. Epstein, Associate Professor of English                       
  Suffolk County Community College, Selden, New York                        
-                                                                           
  Leonard Gardner, Lecturer, English Department                             
  State University of New York at Stony Brook                               
-                                                                           
  Beverly A. Haley, Member, Advisory Committee                              
  National Council of Teachers of English Student Guide Series              
  Fort Morgan, Colorado                                                     
-                                                                           
  Elaine C. Johnson, English Teacher                                        
  Tamalpais Union High School District                                      
  Mill Valley, California                                                   
-                                                                           
  Marvin J. LaHood, Professor of English                                    
  State University of New York College at Buffalo                           
-                                                                           
  Robert Lecker, Associate Professor of English                             
  McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada                               
-                                                                           
  David E. Manly, Professor of Educational Studies                          
  State University of New York College at Geneseo                           
-                                                                           
  Bruce Miller, Associate Professor of Education                            
  State University of New York at Buffalo                                   
-                                                                           
  Frank O'Hare, Professor of English                                        
  Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio                                     
-                                                                           
  Faith Z. Schullstrom, Member, Executive Committee                         
  National Council of Teachers of English                                   
  Director of Curriculum and Instruction                                    
  Guilderland Central School District, New York                             
-                                                                           
  Mattie C. Williams, Director, Bureau of Language Arts                     
  Chicago Public Schools, Chicago, Illinois                                 
-                                                                           
-                                                                           
                   THE END OF BARRON'S BOOK NOTES                           
              STEPHEN CRANE'S THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE                      
                                                                            
                                                                            
                               BIBLIOGRAPHY                 (CREDBIBL)      
                                                                            
RED_BADGE_OF_COURAGE                                                        
                           FURTHER READING                                  
-                                                                           
                           CRITICAL WORKS                                   
-                                                                           
  Bassan, Maurice. Stephen Crane: A Collection of Critical Essays. New      
York, 1967.                                                                 
-                                                                           
  Bergon, Frank. Stephen Crane's Artistry. New York, 1975.                  
-                                                                           
  Berryman, John. Stephen Crane. New York, 1950.                            
-                                                                           
  Cady, Edwin. Stephen Crane. New York, 1980.                               
-                                                                           
  Gullason, Thomas. Stephen Crane's Career: Perspectives and                
Evaluations. New York, 1972.                                                
-                                                                           
  Katz, Joseph, ed. Stephen Crane in Transition: Centenary Essays. New      
York, 1972.                                                                 
-                                                                           
  Nagel, James. Stephen Crane and Literary Impressionism. New York,         
1980.                                                                       
-                                                                           
  Stallman, Robert. Stephen Crane: A Biography. New York, 1968.             
-                                                                           
  Walcutt, Charles C. American Literary Naturalism: A Divided               
Stream. Minneapolis, 1956, pp. 66-82.                                       
-                                                                           
  Weatherford, Richard, ed. Stephen Crane: The Critical Heritage.           
New York, 1973.                                                             
-                                                                           
                        AUTHOR'S OTHER WORKS                                
-                                                                           
  NOVELS                                                                    
-                                                                           
  Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893, 1896). The story of how              
circumstances force Maggie Johnson to become a prostitute. One of           
the first naturalistic novels, and one of the first set in an urban         
slum.                                                                       
-                                                                           
  George's Mother (1896). Another novel set in a slum.                      
-                                                                           
  The Monster (1899). A hideously injured man is ostracized by his          
smalltown neighbors.                                                        
-                                                                           
SHORT STORIES                                                               
-                                                                           
  "An Experiment in Misery" (1894). A young man decides to see what         
it's like to be down and out.                                               
-                                                                           
  "The Men in the Storm" (1894). A crowd of poor men wait outside a         
soup kitchen during a snowstorm.                                            
-                                                                           
  "A Mystery of Heroism" (1895). A war story.                               
-                                                                           
  "The Veteran" (1896). The story of Henry Fleming's death.                 
-                                                                           
  "The Open Boat" (1897). Crane's most famous story.                        
-                                                                           
  "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" (1898). The story of a fight that         
didn't take place, set in Texas.                                            
-                                                                           
  "The Blue Hotel" (1898). A stranger is killed when a fight breaks         
out over a game of cards.                                                   
-                                                                           
  "An Episode of War" (1899). A soldier is injured.                         
-                                                                           
  "The Upturned Face" (1900). Two soldiers bury their comrade.              
-                                                                           
  Thomas Gullason, ed. The Complete Short Stories of Stephen Crane.         
Garden City, N.Y., 1963.                                                    
-                                                                           
-                                                                           
         THE END OF THE BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR BARRON'S BOOK NOTES                
               STEPHEN CRANE'S THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE