In the realistic historical fiction novel, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, a young man named Henry Fleming enlists to go fight in battles in the Civil War between the Union and the Confederacy. He struggles within himself because he fears that he will run away from battle. When he is called to battle, he runs away, but then he eventually decides to go back to battle to face battle along with all of his fears. One theme of the novel is that the world is uncaring. This relates to Henry’s character and naturalism. To begin, one theme of the novel is that the world can be cruel and is uncaring because horrible things happen in the world. Crane writes, “The reverberations were continual. This part of the world led a strange, battleful
