The Red Badge Of Courage

7 Pages 1840 Words

The Red Badge of Courage
It is a story that realistically depicts the American Civil War through the eyes of Henry Fleming, an ordinary farm boy who decides to become a soldier. Henry, who is fighting for the Union, is very determined to become a hero, and the story depicts Henry’s voyage from being a young coward, to a brave man. The novel opens with a description of the fields at dawn, "As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors" (43). It set in the south during the 19th century Civil War, and is the classic trip from innocence to experience. A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, flowed at the army’s feet, and at night it flowed in blackness and ". . . one could see across the red, eyelike gleam of the hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of the distant hills" (43). The setting is appropriate because it creates a image of a tense and suffering battlefield. Anything can happen to anyone and anyone can become anything. It is a place where a person could become a hero or another died body on a bloodshed field.
The solders awake eager and a heated debate between the soldiers erupts. One boy had heard a rumor that the regiment would be moving on to fight a battle the next day. Some of the soldiers agree with this boy, while others think that their regiment will never partake in a real battle. While watching this argument, Henry, the protagonist, decides that he would rather go lay down and think rather then take part in the heated argument between the soldiers. Henry, a simple farm boy, is rather excited when he hears the rumor that they will be fighting soon. It had always been a dream of his to fight in a war, and become a hero, and now his dream was coming true. Henry begins to think about what life was like before he entered the army, and remembers the stories of war he has heard from old veterans. This flashback is very effective...