Red badge of courige - Essay Example

Henry Fleming, an adolescent with passionate impressions regarding war and its victories thereby enlists in the Union army. This exposes a side of him which he never knew existed. Henry’s mixed tendencies are brought out by the injustices, horror and boredom experienced during the time of warfare.During his initial stay Henry is scared that he will scurry like a coward when on the battle front. In the military he has been sitting around with others like him, wondering when they’re going to get some action.

As he indulges the other men, he unsuccessfully attempts to get them to own up to them being frightened as well. As in "Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if we all just ran away?" Shortly before his first battle, he sees his first dead body, a gruesome corpse. They entirely appear as the ideal definition of intrepid men, something that makes Henry feel terrible about his trepidation. We are introduced to two men, Jim Conklin "the Tall Soldier" and Wilson "the Loud Soldier." Wilson who is afraid that death will befall him during battle, hands Henry an envelope of mail to deliver after the war.

The men finally set out. Even though they are heading into combat, there are oodles of jokes. One guy even attempts to pilfer a horse from a farm and a young girl succeeds in having it back. As the war breaks out, Henry survives, but when the second round of cantankerous fighting begins he is horrified and goes for the hills. This to him was more of a survival instinct after intense thought. Henry comes across a group of wounded men leaving as he heads towards battlefront. He wishes he too had a red badge of courage when he saw their bloody injuries.

A tattered and wounded soldier, taunts Henry by asking where his injury is injury is. This gets our “hero” very nervous and uncomfortable because the turn of events would make him be branded a deserter. Jim Conklin then dies a rather atrocious death before him. Henry takes off and is bonked on the head with a rifle butt by a pretty freaked out colleague in the army only for him to end up back to his 304th company. Due to the confusion which resulted in separation of everyone in the battle no one accuses Henry of desertion.

His head injury further makes his colleagues assume a slug grazed him.Yet another war breaks out for which Henry is prepared. He puts up formidable resistance and battles wildly which earns him praise from the lieutenant. Suddenly someone yells, "Here they come!" And sure enough, the Confederates rush at Henry’s group of soldiers.Henry totally obliterates his fears fires and reloads his weapon like an irate beast. He feels as if he is a part of something greater, machinelike and multi-bodied.

There were men who were gruesomely injured while others lay dying or lifeless. The lieutenant beats up one soldier when he tries to run away. When it is over, Henry feels weary, amazed to see the sun shining and proud at seeing the Union flag still hoisted. During a respite amid battles, Henry and Wilson overhear a reference to their regiment as "mule drivers" and that preparation to have them at the front line was in the offing. Henry needed more that to prove him a soldier. In the next scuffle, he and Wilson saw the Union flag die.

They surge forward, take up the flag, and marshal the men to fight. After this their superiors praise their courageous action.When the battle is over, Henry reflects on his actions. He decides to accept his earlier, cowardly actions rather than pretend they never happened. He sees himself as a real man who has survived "the red sickness of battle" (24.33). He suddenly lost concern for himself, and forgot to look at a menacing fate. He became not a man but a member. He felt that something of which he was a part—a regiment, an army, a cause, or a country—was in a crisis.

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.He saw his vivid error, and he was afraid that it would stand before him all his life. He took no share in the chatter of his comrades, nor did he look at them or know them, save when he felt sudden suspicion that they were seeing his thoughts and scrutinizing each detail of the scene with the tattered soldier. ReferenceStephen, Crane (1895).

The Red Badge of Courage.