Henry Fleming In Red Badge Of Courage

He listens in on the battle, and to much of his surprise, he hears cheering from what’s left of his regiment. He then takes off into the woods in anger. While running through the woods his conscience begins to speak to him. He keeps telling himself that he is a coward and a deserter. Out of guilt, Henry runs back to the battle site, and meets again with his regiment. These actions showed Henry’s maturity and desire to be a war hero.

First, one should focus on the language and Henry's ethos. The soldiers are burdened with the thought of a

Henry hated to be ridiculed so badly that he abandoned the poor man who only showed care and concern for Henry. A hero doesn't abandon a fellow soldier in desperate need of help. Henry tries to reassure his confidence by asking other soldiers how they would respond to battle. Jim Conklin honestly said that it depended on the circumstances, "but if everyone was a standing and a fighting, why, I'd stand and fight."(Crane Ch.1) When he asked Wilson, Wilson dismissed the notion of running from battle. Henry was trying to look for someone to relate to, but as a result of questioning his fellow soldiers he further isolated his insecurities of battle.

"At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage." (Ch.9, Pg. 61) Jim Conklin, Wilson, and the tattered man are not only alike in some ways, but also have differences. The purpose of this essay is to tell you the similarities between the tall soldier, the loud soldier, and the tattered man, how they are like or unlike Henry Fleming, and what roles these major characters seem to play in the novel.

As he is walking, a few soldiers that seems to be fleeing run into him. As Henry tries to stop them to ask what’s been happening, one of the soldiers swings at him with a rifle, opening a bloody gash on the top of his head. After a long while of waiting, a friendly soldier finds him and leads him back to camp, where a friend tends to his wound. After a few days of waiting, they come across another battle. This time Henry doesn’t flee, instead he thinks about all the people who have fought and died in the war, and decides to do the same: fight. Not only for the glory this time, but for the people he was

In a battle in deep trenches, Henry starts complaining that the regiment has no real plan in the battle and that the regiment does not really know what to do in the battle. Wilson tries to calm down Henry from his anger, but Henry got angrier and took his anger out on Wilson. The lieutenant was dissatisfied with Henry’s anger and told him to keep his mouth shut about anything that might bring the regiment down. His immaturity is shown as Henry does not know how to control his feelings in a dangerous situation, which could get him and the regiment in

First, Henry might have been scared. He saw what happened in the first battle and it affected him in a way it didn't the others. This was the first time he fought in a war or battle with other men. He made friends with some of the soldiers in his regiment. If he stuck

In the Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, Henry has a conflict of individual vs. self as he struggles to mature at first when confronted with the realities of war. We see Henry be mesmerized by the glories of being a soldier but he does not truly understand what it means to be a soldier fighting in a conflict such as the Civil War. He matures and develops throughout his exposure to warfare and understands what it means to be a warrior. This is the central point in understanding why he fights with the other soldiers the first battle, yet he flees when the second battle ensues.

When faced with adversities early into his first battle, he quickly reconsidered his views on war and courage. By running away from the face of battle, Henry “saw his vivid error, and he was afraid that it would stand before him all his life” (Cane 24.30).  This pushed him into believing that he would never be a man of courage of masculinity. This “error” of running away caused Henry to be angry at himself for mistakenly thinking the battle was over and abandoning his fellow soldiers. While away from the battle Henry discovers “that he had a scorching thirst” and “his body was calling for food” (Cane 11.21). From the struggle of war and the experience of Wilson, Henry learns to reflect upon his life and learn from his mistakes, rather than being angry at himself. This allowed Henry to be influenced by the culture around him, shaping him into acknowledging that courage was not depicted by a gunshot or a wound, but by the act of adhering to the line of duty and learning from your

In the first battle Henry fights along with all the soldiers because the captain told the regiment to hold the line as the enemy tried to push them off the land. He fought with his regiment and had won the battle.

When the men regroup for the second attack, many of the Union soldiers around henry begin to run away. Henry gives into the pressure and joins in the retreat, he wasn’t prepared for the horror that war brings. As he’s running, he seems to observe everyone else around him. He sees his captain lying stretched on the ground, dead, the babbling man was grazed by a shot to the head, and another man grunted as he was struck in the stomach, along with many others that just started dropping to the ground. As Henry ran, he feared for his life that he was going to be struck in the back, but he continued running. The thought of self-preservation seemed more important to him than fighting with selflessness and bravery along with the other

Henry fights along with the other soldiers in the first battle, yet he flees from the scene when the second battle ensues. Henry had a confusing opinion about the battles being fought. He believed that the first battle was a sure fire win and that the second battle was a complicated one to win. The battles were both very different.

“The Youth,” which Henry is referred to as, dreamt of glory in battle and being a hero (Crane 2). That is the reason why Henry enlisted himself; even though he told his comrades he was forced to be in the army. His mother’s farewell speech is ironic because he thought that she would give him a tearful and long speech, but all she really said was to “Watch out, and be a good boy” (4). She does not want Henry to be a hero even though that is what he went to war for. She told Henry that she will be fine if he does not return home. Henry tries to pull off being a confident and good soldier, while in the reality he is very nervous about what will happen in battle. Throughout the novel, he questions his courage and if he would run from battle. At an early battle, Henry continuously fires at the enemy line and feels like he is a courageous soldier. However, soon after this battle, another one erupts and Henry runs from it. This is

He described that he couldn’t escape even if he wanted to. Through this analogy, the reader can see that Henry is reducing the soldiers to unthinking, unfeeling machines, performing their duty without taking into account the threat of injury or death. As he looks around at the faces of the rest of the soldiers in his regiment, he notices their focused commitment to the firing of their rifles. He wonders if he is the only one faced with questions of morality. While the regiment began to advance, Henry was shocked to receive a packet of letters from Wilson, who feared he would die in battle. After the battle, he is glad that he made it through the first day. He begins to lose the romantic vision of war by seeing the realities, but he starts lying to himself about who is really is.

Henry's fears take over, and his only way to achieve his self comfort again is to run away from the battle. Henry uses the forest to calm himself. The forest is where he begins to overcome his selfish ways, he reflects back on the battle and the men, and starts to believe that he can be of help to one or more of the men in the regiment. Henry eventually wins over the fear and joins with another regiment to fight against the rebels.