The Red Badge Of Courage Essay

War. It is a mystical act that has been present in all of mankind’s history, dating back to ancient civilization. It is an act that is portrayed as heroic and patriotic, but the soldiers who participate in the battles are able to truly explain the fear and chaos that rampage through their bodies and all around them. In the Red Badge of Courage, written by Stephen Crane, the effects and tragedies involved in war are explored by Henry Fleming. Not only is this portrayal intriguing, it is interesting to see their methods in which Crane, someone who has never been in battle, depicts war as compared to the authors such as Tim O’Brien and Ernest Hemingway who have. Crane, although a rambunctious writer of war novels, never actually experienced the battle himself before writing the Red Badge of Courage. Through this novel, Crane shoots down all the romantic notions of war that had been prevalent in his era of literature(“Crane's Realistic Treatment of War in ‘The Red Badge of Courage.’”). For example, it can best be seen when Henry has enlisted for the war in his …show more content…
For instance, in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried-an author who has experienced combat first hand, unlike Crane- war is portrayed in a much different manner. O’Brien portrays War as an unnecessary evil of man and leaves his fictional book to be about a man’s yearning for peace after seeing the misfortunes of war. Specifically, the weight of the war that all of the soldiers they carried for the rest of their lives- “They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried”(O’Brien). As can be seen, the implications from an author who has truly been to war are presented in a much different manner than in Crane’s novel. O’Brien does not as openly diagnose the war as Crane does, instead he lets the events that took place, speak for