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Bullets began to whistle among the branches and nip at the trees it was as if a thousand axes, wee and invisible, were being wielded. Henry Fleming says as he describes the terrible ordeals of war in The Red Badge of Courage. Stephen Crane, the author of this novel, hadn t been an actual soldier in any war, but he was able to accurately portray battle scenes of war. Crane was also able to thoroughly develop his protagonist, Henry Fleming, in the novel from first hand accounts of actual Civil War veteran s stories in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War.
Crane developed Fleming from a coward to a courageous solder of war. Henry Fleming, referred to as simply the youth, enlists on the Union side of the Civil War, because of stories of adventures and heroism's. Fleming lives on a farm with his mother in the rural North of the United States. She discourages him from enlisting in the army, and it takes him a whole night to build up the courage to tell his mom that he wants to enlist in the. When he enlists he travels to where his regiment is forming, and he meets a tall soldier named Jim Conklin, who is in his regiment.
They become friends during the days before the battles start. They both hope to earn a place among the war heroes they both admire. The days before the battles began, Fleming is plagued by doubts about his own bravery. He begins to ask questions to other solders in his regiment to ascertain if anybody other than him has had thoughts of running away during the battle. Fleming becomes very anxious to go into battle and he states, I don t mind marching, if there s going to be fighting at the end of it. The plot centers on a few days of battle.
Fleming s first day of battle is incredibly overwhelming. His first battle is on the edge of a field on the left flank of the army. Once the great battle begins and the youth increasingly realizes to his horror that he is on his own, his sense of fear rises. This sense of fear in Fleming entices him to retreat and leave his friend Jim behind. After running a few miles Fleming stops when he sees a dead man sitting with his back against a tree.
He was being looked at by a dead man who was seated with his back against a column like tree. The corpse was dressed in a uniform that once had been blue, but was now faded to a melancholy shade of green. The eyes, staring at the youth, had changed to the dull hue to be seen on the side of a dead fish. The mouth was open.
Its red had changed to an appalling yellow. Over the trundling was some sort of bundle along the upper lip. The sight of the dead man made Fleming horror stricken. He is afraid to go back to his regiment, thinking that they will mock him because of his coward ness. He then finds wounded soldiers marching and falls into line with them.
He realizes that one of the solders is his friend Jim, who has been deeply wounded; he realizes he must leave his friend to die at the edge of a forest. Fleming wishes he had a wound because he envied the marching soldiers red badges of courage, which was any sign of blood or a wound on oneself. While wandering amongst the other regiments, Fleming gets knocked over the head by a rifle, and he finds his way back to camp, where his fellow soldiers in his regiment assume that a bullet has struck him. He finds new confidence in his friends ignorance of his secret.
At the same time he overhears from two officers that his regiment is not doing well in the army, and this is the turning point in the novel. He seeks to disprove this statement, so he leads his regiment into the next battle where they successfully fend off a group of soldiers. However, once they fend off another group of soldiers, they are told that they did not advance far enough. Despite this disgrace and disappointment, Fleming receives praise for carrying the flag valiantly, and he proves himself to be a courageous soldier of war.
Crane fully developed the character Henry Fleming in this novel. The regiment s charge has reestablished its reputation and the youth finds that he has survived to triumph over his fears. He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was but the great death. He had rid himself of the red sickness of battle. 330
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Research essay sample on Henry Fleming Civil War
