The Red Badge Of Courage :: essays research papers fc

In The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen hold out uses fear to bring you into the story and keep you there. Cranes main character Henry, the youth, is the prime example for this point. Henrys fear is the entire novels basis. Throughout the story, Henry goes by different phases of fear. Henry starts out to be a rebellious teen wanting to join the army and gain the glory and recognition that comes with it. He fails to pretend that fame and glory dont come easy. He realizes that he is going to have to work for it and this is where his fear stems from. Once enlisted, Henry finds himself on the field of an turn up battle. He debates if he will fight with his status, or run off into the woods. The battle starts, and Henry keeps to his position through sheer fear of dying. When the opposing side appears to retreat, the Union side celebrates pre-maturely. Moments later, the South re-groups and attacks again. Henry this time does not stay and fight. The first wave was hard enough and this t ime Henry is too terror-struck to stay. As he ran into the woods, he began to question the slaughter he had witnessed in the battle. When Henry comes out of the woods into another control another soldier slams him oer the head, giving him a false red badge of courage, for not letting go of him. Henry, scared and wounded, stumbles in the dark overcoming a great fear of the grey army, by wandering through dark and unknown land, to find his way back to camp. He finds a friend who leads him to his regiment. Henry, afraid of what his regiment will cogitate of him, begins to think of a story to make his injury seem realistic. Trying not to give away its actual origin, Henry comes up with a gun beam of light wound story. His regiment gives him the glory he wanted, but under false circumstances. In the following days, another battle takes place. Henry fearing again what his regiment would think of him has to stay and fight. Henry is so into keeping the origin of his wound hidden that he stands behind a tree and fires shot after shot towards the army. He continues to fire after the rebels had retreated another soldier had to stop him. Henry is seen as a great soldier.