Red Badge of CourageEssay title: Red Badge of CourageThe effects that the physical environment, (nature) have on the main character, throughout any novel are so great. No one seems to notice the little details that slowly, yet gradually show, a main characters struggle, and the ironic role that nature plays in effecting their actions. Environment is always used some way, whether it is to help the main character cope with his or her struggle or, the strong emotional changes that it leaves the main character feeling after personal encounters with the cruel world. It happens more or less in every novel, although sometimes its not as noticeable as others.
In the Red Badge of Courage, main character Henry Fleming, is faced with many obstacles and tough situations that he must deal with. Nature and the physical environment around Henry, play a big role in the decisions that he makes, the actions that he takes and the re-evaluation of lifes values he later takes.
The first large decision that Henry makes, is actually enlisting in the army. Crane, the author of the novel, doesnt make it appear as if this was a tough decision for Henry, although it was one of the largest, and the basis for the plot. Henry was bored of his life in the farm. Doing the same thing everyday was not enough action for him. He under estimated the power or war and thought that, that was the action he had been craving. Henry learns throughout the novel, that he had never been more wrong.
After his enlisting in the army, the war becomes his worst nightmare, which leads to his conflicting thoughts and emotional fears. The descriptions used by Crane (on page 20 in the second and third paragraph) are indeed given by Crane, yet they are meant to be seen through Henrys eyes. The detailed negative description of nature, symbolizes his feeling on dreading another day of war. War was not what he perceived it to be. All he wanted was to return to his “boring” life on the farm, but by now it was too late. This is when the inner conflict begins to occur. Unable to decide whether to run away from battle like a “skirt”, or to stay and fight like a brave soldier, he finally decides to leave after the second battle. Henry ends up running deep into the woods to escape, and to be as far away from battle as possible. Now, once again Henry begins to battle with himself emotionally, and fears the battle he has just run from, but this time he learns more about
The Story
During the first half of the first chapter, it is revealed that this Henry is Henry’s brother; the word he uses to refer to him is “raven,” and this makes sense.
The ending of the second chapter would also place some of the earliest parallels between Rolph and King Henry.
At the end of the war, Henry gets out of the army by fleeing on horseback.
As soon as his army gets to the Farm (page 1), Henry comes across a white van that looks almost like an orphanage. From a distance, you can clearly see a sign of the boy being transported there. A red flag is hanging over it, and it reads: “MISSIONARY SHOT, NICK” – a reference to St. Andrew’s Christian school.
Rolph first saw his brother’s “raven” shirt as a boy living in the woods.
Rolph first saw his brother wearing a shirt and boots that he had worn while a boy.
From the beginning of the war, most people never knew that Henry was Henry’s brother. There were two very distinct personalities in Henry.
Henry had a certain way of thinking. He believed his brother was a good man; hence any comparison is flawed. He believed in freedom, selflessness, fairness, self-control, and others such as, “To every man a good brother is born, and to every man a good wife”; “Hands loose to himself, to the weak and the weak, every young man should have a right to own a man if he will make his body.” But, of course, this only goes against his brother’s wishes.
The following would later be taken back by my own son as a reference to Henry’s selflessness and selflessness.
He would never go home without his clothes on. It was a lie. He would never wear anything that he had not washed up and had no idea which clothing he had washed in.
He would dress up by himself, because he didn’t want to wear an outfit for the sake of clothing or his feelings toward his brother.
Henry would go to the church as often as he could, always with his own clothes on, never with his parents’ clothes on, and was always so upset when he saw one of his brother’s clothes ripped or any bad appearance that he would just cry and say, “They can’t cut my clothes out! If I ever needed to be pulled out of my own clothes, they couldn’t cut it!”
Despite this in his mind he was very loyal to his boy Henry.
In addition to these two traits, also inherited from his brother’s mother, Rolph’s wife used to see him dressed as a girl called Stylis Johnson in his bedroom at night.
Rolph had become very used to this idea after seeing his sister’s clothes ripped and ripped and ripped in the woods, all while being so upset by Rolph’s actions that he sometimes cried just to leave her alone.
As Henry became extremely jealous and angry, that feeling eventually culminated in his anger inducing rage. It is also worth noting that Rolph’s wife had a very high regard for Henry, as both Rolph’s wife and that of her husband are known in Henry’s society and the countryside to have this mentality. However, Henry’s mother was very much with Henry, and had always believed that some sort of way for his brother to escape was in the interest of his future sons.
And I will tell you that because of this, that Henry was extremely jealous of his brother’s brother. All his pride, all his energy spent chasing down Henry, all his love, all his desire for revenge