308 Crane, Stephen
the overturned dinghy as a float, but the boat, caught
by a strong wave, soon batters the correspondent.
Despite tremendous odds, the captain, the cook, and
the young correspondent make it safely to shore. But
the oiler, the physically strongest of the crew, the one
most capable of swimming the distance, is found in
the shallows, face downward.
Those allowed to live, according to the corre-
spondent, can “then be interpreters.” The implication
is that they can interpret the mystery of survival. But
the text itself suggests that no such interpretation is
possible since the one who had seemed most capable
of survival is the one who has died.
Joyce Smith
CRANE, STEPHEN The Red Badge of
Courage (1895)
In 1895, some three decades after the end of the
American Civil War, Stephen Crane published The
Red Badge of Courage, a novel set during that war,
with the specific battle probably the Battle of Chan-
cellorsville, although the locale is never named. The
novel follows young Henry Fleming into the Union
Army and through the battle. The youth must con-
front the reality of war as opposed to the romantic
notions he has gained through reading heroic epics.
Henry soon finds war anything but romantic. At
first it is downright boring, with absolutely nothing
happening and with the young recruits eager for
action. When that action finally comes, Henry is
afraid that he will be a coward. He encounters other
young recruits, the tall soldier and the loud soldier,
who also do not know what to expect. Jim Conklin,
the tall soldier, seems self-assured and eager to fight,
and the loud soldier gives Henry a packet of letters
to be sent to his mother in the event of his death.
All three are uncertain about the nature of battle.
Eventually Henry does incur a wound, his own red
badge of courage, but that badge is ironic, for he has
not earned it for bravery.
Major themes include Henry’s coming of age,
his questions about heroism and cowardice, and the
role of religion in the process. Although the novel’s
action takes place in only a few days, Henry learns
much about himself. The book ends, however, with
doubt that he has yet firmly grasped the concept of
heroism.
Joyce SmithcOminG OF aGe in The Red Badge of Courage
At the beginning of The Red Badge of Courage, Ste-
phen Crane refers to Henry Fleming most often as
“the youth,” reminding us of his immaturity. Henry,
a schoolboy, has signed up with the military because
he has visions of greatness, and his motive is not to
fight for an important cause but to achieve fame.
Dressed in his newly issued uniform, he goes to his
school to show it off, and he revels in the applause
given the troops as they move from train station to
train station. He is disappointed that his mother
says nothing of “returning with his shield or on
it,” the admonition given to warriors in the Greek
heroic literature he has read in school.
Henry has no idea of what real war is like, but
he quickly learns that boredom is a large part of
each day. Instead of the glory he had expected, he
finds the tedium of waiting. He is eager to prove
his manhood: “The youth had been taught that a
man became another thing in a battle.” When his
first battle ends, he is ecstatic that he has passed the
test of masculine maturity: “So it was all over at last!
The supreme trial had been passed.” What the still-
immature youth does not realize is that during this
battle, he has simply reacted in the same way those
around him have reacted; he has been, in effect, a
part of a vast machine moving mechanically. In the
next battle, the second, when those around him are
running, he retreats as well.
Henry’s only apparent gain in maturity comes
in the third battle, after he has overheard an officer
telling the general that his unit is expendable: “They
fight like a lot ’a mule drivers. I can spare them best
of any.” When the general replies that he does not
believe many of the men will survive, the youth feels
that “he had been made aged.” In spite of the fact
that the leaders believe he will be killed, this time
Henry goes forward bravely, eager to prove that he is
not a coward. Both he and his friend Wilson exhibit
their courage, Henry by carrying the flag and Wil-
son by charging ahead with him. At the end of the
battle, their pride is evident: “And they were men.”