Essay, Research Paper: The Red Badge Of Courage Essay Test

The Red Badge Of Courage


1. From the very beginning of the book, Red Badge of Courage, Henry causes a conflict way before he even enters war. This conflict stays inside him to the very end, as he tries to deal with gaining courage to fight in war. Although he eventually fights towards the middle of the book, I believe that he still has the conflict inside him, and he doesn't feel safe fighting.
Henry first goes to the army in the beginning of the story with the intention of being a hero. He doesn't care about what he is fighting for; he just wants to be the hero of it all. Although his mom wants him to stay on the farm and help her, he says he has to go. Before he leaves he has no second thoughts about having the courage to fight, and he sees no problems. However, once he reaches the camp, he begins to feel bored and uncomfortable. He begins thinking about the war and questions himself as to whether or not he will be as brave as he hoped.
In his first battle, Henry fights well and doesn't become scared. However, the next battle he is tired and when he sees two other soldiers run, he throws down his gun and does the same. He justifies his actions by telling himself that the regiment was about to be wiped out. Once the battle is over and he realizes they won, he becomes angry with his fellow soldiers instead of himself. This is the place where his fear comes out most and he is confused, because instead of wanting to blame himself, he tries to blame it on the other soldiers. Henry starts to change once a retreating union soldier wounds him. Up until that point he had been full of rationalizations and denial. Now he is scared, not just of the battle, but also of being teased by his fellow soldiers. Because of this, he tells the other soldiers that he was shot while fighting in another regiment, rather than telling them the truth.
By the end of the book, Henry has changed and no longer has the conflict of fear inside him. In the final battle, he has stopped thinking about himself and fear of fighting and starts to act on instinct. Then he finally can act bravely and fight, being the hero that he wanted to be at the beginning of the war. From losing his fear, Henry gains the respect of his fellow soldiers and leaders and loses the teasing he once got from them.


2. Throughout the novel, Henry encounters a number of contrasts dealing with the settings, as well as
events that occur. One important setting which causes a contrast with Henry is at the end of chapter five. It says the sun is shining over the field of battle. Normally, the sun is considered a natural beauty of nature. However, since it is over a battlefield, it contrasts with each other because its beauty and horror and violence mixed together.
The other major setting that I noticed which caused a contrast is after the first battle Henry runs into the forest, thinking that he will be calmed by the sight of trees and nature, since they are usually a beautiful and calming thing. However, within this beautiful setting, he finds the body of a dead soldier which is decaying, so it makes him feel even worse. This causes a contrast since he goes into the woods with the intention of being calmed but he actually becomes more disgusted and scared, realizing the effect of war.
Henry encounters an event, which causes a huge contrast. He finally obtains his first wound in the war. After running away from the battle, he tries to talk to a soldier from his regiment. He grabs the soldier on his arm trying to get his attention and out of panic the soldier turns around and hits Henry across his head with the barrel of his gun. This causes contrast because he fears being teased by his fellow soldiers. For this reason, he lies and says the other side shot him.
Another event that occurs causing contrast, is when he ran away from the fighting in the second battle. He refuses to face the fact that he was just being a coward and then when his regiment ended up winning, he became angry with them rather than himself. This causes a contrast because he won't realize that he is scared and in exchange his fellow soldiers tease him, which is one of his major fears.


3. Other characters had an effect on Henry and the outcome of his character. Jim, one of the soldiers who Henry was around often, had a large effect on him. Jim is very calm throughout the whole war. He never complains about anything, such as his wounds or the stupidity of the officers. He excepts orders and does as he is told. Henry doesn't understand how Jim can't let the war effect him and instead lets the war bring out the best of him. As he watches Jim have no effect put on him by the war, Henry as well tries to do as Jim does. He witnesses Jim die without complaint the first day of battle and on the second day is when he puts his fear aside and begins to fight for the cause. In his short existence in the war, Jim helped Henry to understand that he was there to fight with others as a group rather than to be only a hero.
The next character who has an effect on Henry is Wilson. Wilson is a great friend to Henry towards the end of the book. Wilson helped Henry realize that he is not the only scared soldier fighting in the war. At first when Henry tries to find out if Wilson is scared, the loud soldier brags about how well he is going to fight and how he is sure he will never run. He lasted Henry's fear, which made him feel much worse. Henry doesn't realize at first that Wilson just expresses his fear in a different way. However, just before the first battle, Wilson gives Henry some letters to give to his family after his death because Wilson is sure that he will die the first day. This is when Henry realizes that Wilson is not as brave as he appears. By Wilson being sure he is going to die, it causes Henry to feel better, knowing that many others have fear just like him.
The final character who has an effect on Henry is the tattered soldier. At the beginning of the story, the tattered soldier tries desperately to be friends with Henry but he ends up scaring Henry off with his questions. Then Henry comes across the tattered soldier when witnessing Jim's death. The tattered soldier at this time is very sympathetic to Henry's imaginary wounds although he doesn't know how right he is that Henry is hurting inside. Henry ends up leaving this tattered soldier probably to die alone. Henry finds shame in this action later on in the book. The soldier helps Henry to realize he is hurting inside from the war. All three of these characters show Henry something about himself, and help him to realize and overcome his problems during the battle. Without them, he would have been much more fearful and wouldn't have fought as well.


4. In this story, the title is very important. The Red Badge of Courage not only deals with Henry, but also with other members of his regiment. While he is walking with fellow members, he notices that most of them have wounds, and he wishes he had a "red badge of courage." He refers to the wounds as this because he feels that since they were not scared and they did not run away from the battle, that it's a sign of courage. Through the whole story, Henry wanted to be a hero, and the red badge was a sign of it. Once Henry finally got one, by the soldier hitting him on the head with the gun, he lied about it and made everyone think he was brave. However, in the end, he ended up truly being a hero once he put all of his fears behind him. Ironically, when Henry shows real courage in battle, he is not wounded. The real badge of courage is inside, and the proof of courage is deeds. The title tells us that this book is about the difference between what courage looks like and what it really is. This bases the entire book on heroism, and the base of war is the "red badge."


5. Henry is identified as a man of sensitivity and imagination in the story. His mind wonders when he becomes bored and he starts to think using his imagination on whether or not he will fight and other aspects involved in the battles. These qualities lead him toward cowardice throughout the story for a number or reasons.
His sensitivity caused him to be cowardice, because usually, most people who are sensitive cannot be brave as well. If any courage is there in a person, the sensitivity takes away from it because any small even that occurs makes them less brave. An example of an event, which effects him, is when Jim dies. He sees a strong man like Jim die in such a short time, and it causes him to think more, making him want to fight even less. Also, from being sensitive, he was more susceptible from the other soldiers making fun of him, which causes him to be less brave. When he had the blood on his head and he told them it was from a gunshot, one guy said that it looked like he had been hit with a gun and began to make fun of him a little. It made him scared of what they would think, and be much less brave.
The other major quality, his imagination, also caused him to be cowardice. He often thought of things that weren't likely to happen, and it made him not want to put himself in danger in the battle. Without an imagination, nothing bad would have came to his mind, and he could have overcame what fear he had of war. His imagination made him believe that all the other soldiers were brave and had no fear in war, and he was the only one scared of fighting. This made him feel left out and made him realize himself that he was indeed a coward