Stephen Crane’s novella The Red Badge of Courage depicts the Civil War from the perspective of a lone soldier, Henry Fleming. Crane does not lighten the view of wartime with romance and friendship, but with the harsh reality of abandonment and survival. Through Henry Fleming, Crane reveals his conception of manhood while also linking it to heroism. At the end of the novella, Henry finally becomes the man he had strived to be. While not as conspicuous as his idea of manhood, Stephen Crane also establishes a message about the social norms of his time through his entire abstraction of the Civil War.
Eager to join the army, Henry Fleming enlists against his mother’s wishes. His mother had thought of Henry still as a child and realistically, Henry was still one. He had naively envisioned “large pictures extravagant in color, lurid with breathless deeds” (4). Henry had the notion that the true essence of manhood had disappeared and was replaced with a faux thought that “Men were…more timid. Secular and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else firm finance held in the check the passions.” (7). By enlisting into the army, Henry had hoped to gain back this “throat-grappling instinct” and simultaneously achieving manhood. Henry had linked the idea of manhood and heroism together. Whenever Henry had felt as a hero, Henry would feel as a man. Whenever Henry had felt as a coward, Henry would feel as an inferior man. Towards the end of his journey, however, Henry feels that he achieved manhood and in doing so, became a hero.
With his naïve picture in mind, Henry had created his idea of manhood by the common idea of overcoming what seemed to be like impossible obstacles: “By this struggle he had overcome obstacles which he had admitted to be mountains. They had fallen like paper peaks, and he was now what he called a hero.” (93). Despite calling himself a hero, Henry had a looming darkness that nagged at his sense of heroism. “Crane’s shorter...