Red Badge of Courage

The Red Badge of Courage is a war novel about a fictional battle in the Civil War. The book was published in 1895. The book discovers the life of an 18 year old, newly enlisted private, Henry Fleming, and his experiences in a great battle.

The book details the story of Fleming as he joins the army, gets ready to fight his first battle, runs away from the first battle he is in, walks around the battlefield and laments and philosophizes about his fate, and then joins the battle again and shows some real courage.

The red badge of courage is the bloody wounds of the soldiers that stayed and fought. They could show that they had courage because they had the red, bloody wounds to prove it - this was their red badge of courage. Fleming didn't have that badge, because he ran away.

The story shows his naiveté of wanting to experience the 'Greeklike' struggles of war, to becoming a coward of that war, and then finding vindication through bravery. At the end of all this, his soul had changed.

Wanting to fight:

"He had long despaired of witnessing a Greeklike struggle. Such would be no more, he had said. Men were better, or more timid. Secular and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else firm finance held in check the passions."

"There was a lavish expenditure of bread and cold meats, coffee, and pickles and cheese. As he basked in the smiles of the girls and was patted and complimented by the old men, he had felt growing within him the strength to do mighty deeds of arms."

Running from his first fight:

"lots of good-a-'nough men have thought they was going to do great things before the fight, but when the time come they skedaddled."

As he perceived this fact it occurred to him that he had never wished to come to the war. He had not enlisted of his free will. He had been dragged by the merciless government. And now they were taking him out to be slaughtered.

The brigade was hurrying briskly to be gulped into the infernal mouths of the war god. What manner of men were they, anyhow? Ah, it was some wondrous breed! Or else they didn't comprehend—the fools.

If none of the little pieces were wise enough to save themselves from the flurry of death at such a time, why, then, where would be the army? It was all plain that he had proceeded according to very correct and commendable rules. His actions had been sagacious things. They had been full of strategy. They were the work of a master's legs.

He, the enlightened man who looks afar in the dark, had fled because of his superior perceptions and knowledge. He felt a great anger against his comrades. He knew it could be proved that they had been fools.

He remembered how some of the men had run from the battle. As he recalled their terror-struck faces he felt a scorn for them. They had surely been more fleet and more wild than was absolutely necessary. They were weak mortals. As for himself, he had fled with discretion and dignity.

He wanted a red badge of courage:

At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage.

He threw aside his mental pamphlets on the philosophy of the retreated and rules for the guidance of the damned.

After showing Bravery on the battlefield:

He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was but the great death. He was a man.

So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and wrath his soul changed.

The book was well written and made me feel a bit sheepish for having any trifles in my life that I think are so much bigger than what they really are.