The Red Badge of Courage
Imagine dark clouds and gun fire over your head. Cannons bursting off in the distance like thunder. Screams of men dying all the way round you. Men in gray uniforms charging at you like rabid dogs. Now imagine you’re a boy seeing and hearing all these things and running toward them. These are all things that Stephen Crane tries to explain in his book The Red Badge of Courage. The book takes through the eyes of a young Civil War soldier named Henry Fleming.
Henry starts off like many young men wanting to serve their country. Like being naïve, full hope and false ideas of the military. I remember some of these things when I first joined only thinking of the positive like adventures, opportunities to see something new things and the pride of belonging. Like I said never the negatives just the positives. I could also relate with Henry when he holds off on telling his mother about joining. That’s something I did my self. When Henry first leaves to fight for the Union in the -304TH- regiment, he leaves with hopes of valor and glory. But soon finds himself constantly marching everywhere and finding himself board. Something he didn’t see himself doing. After going in circles for months and staying in the same place. Henry and the -304TH- get their chance to fight. But before they do Henry see a group of old soldiers and they look both physically and mentally different then Henry and his regiment. Henry soon finds out why and that’s because those men had seen battle and the things that come with it. Henry doesn’t react the way he thought he would when he first sees battle. Instead of running towards danger he runs away from it. Henry realizes his cowardice when finds one of his brothers lying in the woods dying. Henry stays with him till he dies and then tries to return back to the battle when a retreating soldier hits him with the butt stock of his gun. Next thing he finds himself back in his basecamp with bandages on his head and being questioned on how he got his cuts. Being shame full of what he did. He lies about how he got it. He feels even more shame full when he see other wounded soldier that
