Stephen Crane’s
The Red Badge of Courage(
Red Badge) is a classic of American literature in its realistic depiction of war from the average soldier’s viewpoint. The story’s central character, Henry Fleming, is a young man who looks even younger than his chronological age and is given the descriptive title of “the youth”. He is the only child in a single parent family, his father having died sometime in the distant pass. Henry has a romantic picture of himself, imagining girls at his school in love with him and seeing himself as the hero in all his warlike dreams. He joins a regiment, the 304th New York, being raised in his area and receives training along the banks of the Rappahannock River in Northern Virginia in the spring of 1863.
The story begins when one of Henry’s
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Citation: Loges, Max Lester. "The Red Badge of Courage". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 November 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7545, accessed 25 November 2024.]