The Red Badge of Courage

“It was not well to drive men into final corners; at those moments they could all develop teeth and claws.” 

More the story of the battle that rages inside the hero, Henry Fleming, than of that between Confederate and Union soldiers, the novel is, as its author said, a psychological study of fear.

Young Fleming has the romantic notions of the hero he will be when he enters his first battle, but his illusions are soon destroyed and he turns and runs. Ironically, he receives his ‘red badge’ when a fellow soldier strikes his head with the butt of a gun. He sees a friend dies and tries to find security in a secluded spot in the forest. After attempting to stop the addvancing troops he thinks are doomed, Fleming returns to his comrades. During the battle on the next day, he gives up his illusions, merges with the great body of soldiers, and becomes, temporarily at least, a hero.

Crane’s remarkable insight into the feelings and fears of soldiers provided a new experience to a public unaccustomed to reading about the seamier aspects of war. One of the greatest war novels of all time, The Red Badge of Courage established Crane’s reputation and remains his most popular work. Ernest Hemingway believed The Red Badge of Courage was "one of the finest books of [American] literature".

"The Red Badge Of Courage has long been considered the first great 'modern' novel of war by an American—the first novel of literary distinction to present war without heroics and this in a spirit of total irony and skepticism."—Alfred Kazin