Red Badge of Courage Essay

The interchange thrust of the Red Badge of endurance is directed towards the puncturing of heat content Flemings youthful die hard of illusions. Our inescap able-bodied resultant cin one caserning Red Badge of Courage is that Fleming is as deluded as the fiction ends as he is when he outset joins the confederacy Forces. Which of the above assessments of the development of atomic number 1 Flemings character do you receive comes closest to the truth? In your answer you should Consider the arguments for and against accept the incertitudes assertionsBring to bear knowledge of external small opinion on the issue Look at contextual aspects of the novel in affinity to the topic under consideration. ANSWER I regain that some(prenominal) these arguments specify strong opinions and though both destine a dilettanteal discover of henry Fleming, they are opposing views. The first report convergems to come closest to the truth in that the cashier uses irony to sneer and d eride enthalpy tho at the same eon he ascertains a certain affinity with him also.Statement two is a conclusion but non inescapable as Henry, although still deluded, is non as deluded as he was at the time he joined the Union Army. In choosing statement one to be the receivedr of the two I encounter come to the conclusion that the narrator is being apply as a figure who mocks Henrys egotism and ego deception on one hand then shows bounty on the other. Stephen extend uses the narrator to tell the drool from a third party point of view and t presentfore can use this to get his points crossways.This use of third parties belies stretch outs own experiences of death and mutilation both in his private lifetime with the death of his siblings and in the stories, pictures and photographs he has namen whilst researching the book. It is possible, Stephen put out had read General Ulysses S Grants memoirs and also Battles and Leaders of the courtly War, which was a very popular and itemual compendium of four books at the time and he no doubt saw Mathew B Bradys photographs of the well-behaved War in these also.The novel is a naturalistic human- interest falsehood but Crane uses the experiences of ordinary soldiers who fought during the Civil War to get the feel of how young men were forever changed by their experiences. Crane cleverly uses contrasts to show how Henry feels at differing time, using monster images to show how active an imaging Henry has, for example to describe a column of men, two serpents locomote from the cavern of night.Crane also uses record and colour to show contrasts, with constant references to how the sky looks and the fact that Mother Nature still goes on regardless of anything that puny men can do to themselves, for example a river, amber tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the armys feet, and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eye-like gleam of hostile campfires Phrases like A fair field safekeeping life. It would die if its timid eyes were compelled to see blood and He conceived nature to be a woman with a deep aversion to disaster all show Henrys wonderment at the fact that nature can carry on despite what happens, and at times the narrator sometimes unfairly mocks Henry for this. As the written report develops and we see how Henry deals with the harsh realities of war the use of symbols becomes more developed, with Henry eyesight the darker sides to war and death.This is when, I feel, the narrator becomes sympathetic to Henry as he tries to reconcile himself with the terrible things he has seen and make. The narrator give the nigh sympathy to Henry when he gets lost in the woods and finds a shortly man, horror-stricken by the sight of a thing and again when he meets up with Jim Conklin and watches as he dies. Paradoxically he mocks when Henrys thoughts turn to death and the hope that he would be understood in the aft(p renominal)life.When Henry celebrates victory too soon and then runs away and when Henry leaves the tattered man to die despite staying with Jim whilst he died. After Henry returns to his own camp and Wilson tends his wound he gets very defensive if anyone mentions his absence seizure or his wound, to the point of him thinking of blackmailing Wilson with the return of his letters and the narrator here shows how Henry is feeling superior yet benevolent, thinking himself the give way for not being able to conjure up a scathing annotate and how his self justification makes him pompous, devious and condescending.Henrys illusions are punctured again when after bravely fighting, he hears the veterans laughing at him, which only provokes him to further try his own worth on the battlefield. His perception of the battle is now glowering by the brotherhood of battle. The second claim, is wrong in that Henry is not as deluded as he was, he has fought his demons and come out on the other si de, not perfect, but able to realise that he has done dreadful things and he will have to live with them.Crane uses this breakthrough of self to vast aplomb as he makes Henry question himself in the final chapter. Henry has a totally selfish and colored view of the world at the start, which slow unravels as the story goes on. Crane uses the narrator to give us an insight into Henrys mentality by verbalising his thoughts and giving the narrators view of his actions. This in turn helps us to see the turmoil that Henry faces both inwardly fighting the war and deep down himself. He turns out to despise his early blusterings and convinces himself that he has matured fully.Although this is not true, he has matured to some extent by being able to see the flaws in his character. Henry still romanticises himself and his surroundings but his person-to-person battle between his consious fear and his desire to become a hoagy has been won. When Henry joined up he believed that he would become a great hero and that he would win great battles, he of drift had never even seen a battle except those that went on in his head. He boasts and brags, to himself, about how brave he is going to be yet he turns and runs once the realities of the fighting become apparent.Through his experiences he slowly comes to terms with the fact that war is bloody and cruel And when his friend shows flunk he stores the information to use at a later go through something he later cannot do. To justify all that he has done he thinks it had been necessary for him to swallow swords that he might have a better throat for grapes. Fate had, in truth been kind to him. And to justify exit the tattered man he exclaimed that its importance in the aftertime would be great to him if it even succeeded in hindering the workings of his egotism. Critics of Stephen Crane have both blasted this story as utter rubbish and Cranes usage of the third party narrator as him trying to bring out a biography. G eneral McClurg, when this book was published blasted it as exigent lies. His soldiers would never act like that in such a unspiritual manner. McClurg himself fought in the Civil War but being a everyday was not of course in the front lines of the battle. Many of the men who were, swore that they had fought with Stephen Crane even though he was not born until after the Civil War had ended. Such was the reality of the story to those people.The people who thought that this story was an analogy for Stephen Cranes life based this assumption on these claims, so therefore, Stephen Crane must know of the battle mindset. Personally I think that Crane had heard so many stories of the war he could picture himself there and could imagine how a young boy would feel going through these experiences. Rather like modern stories penned by writers for television receiver and films. I believe that Crane has shown himself to be a psychological realist in writing this piece and that each reader takes from it what they want in relation to their own experiences and knowledge.Perhaps this was a biographical piece and Crane used Henry to show his own delusions. On discussion of this piece, both within a classroom setting and using discussion groups on computer, I have read and heard many differing views of Henry. These views vary depending on the critics age. Many young people see him as egotistical, judgemental and self absorbed whilst mature students see him as just like most teenagers, too young to be able to see the big picture.Henry may be deluded but like most people once maturity sets in delusions become lessened as experience is gained. In conclusion I feel that statement 1 is true because the story develops many internal storylines one of which is the puncturing of Henry Flemings youthful range of illusions, of which he has many. Statement 2 on the other hand seems true because Henry is deluded to a certain extent. This is one definite statement with no real detail behind it, the author of it seems to be assuming that Henry can not or will not change.