The Red Badge of Courage describes the story of Henry Fleming, who joined the Union Army as the only child of his family for his pursuit of the badge. The book focused on the individual feelings of war during the Civil War period, and it showed Henry’s psychological change from naivete to maturity through various incidents. Despite the fact that Stephen Crane did not have the experience of actually participating the war, he did a great job portraying the reality of war , as well as how a single solider developed his mental status after running away from the field of battle, and redeemed himself after and formed a new understanding of the badge.
Henry’s psychological feelings of the badge can be divided into several parts as “the ideal idea of the badge”, “running away from the badge”, “regaining the pursuit of the the badge”, “getting a fake badge” and eventually getting the “true badge”. The story started with the teenager Henry, who worshiped the badge without knowing the reality and cruelty of war at the beginning, joining the Union Army after his mother’s discouragement. When Henry actually joined the army, he started to feel scared, confused to the war, and his ideal idea of the badge was challenged. As the result, he flea from the battle field, and later rejoined the war with an incredible madness/enthusiasm. As a ordinary teenager who had strong pursuit of the badge and being a hero, Henry developed himself from naivete to maturity and eventually grew up as a real man. There were changes in Henry’s thoughts, but his pursuit of the badge never changed.
I think that’s very interesting how you change the perception of Henry’s reality with how he views what the badge means. The question becomes for me, does he still care for that badge by the end of the novel?
I think the badge still means a lot to him in the end, as it records how he went through all this, and change himself from a naive teenager to a brave man. He did not deserve the badge and the glory at the beginning, but you can see his redemption and a change in his personality in the end.
I agree that Henry changed psychologically from naivete to maturity. I think that participating in the Civil War changed Henry. Witnessing the horrors of war forced Henry to mature and become a man. Henry was an inexperienced teenager going into the Civil War and at the end came out as a man.
Something worth noting is that early on in the book after Henry runs from the front line in his first battle he is shown to have a certain envy of the wounded and the dead. This can be seen as jealousy of their red badges, their wounds that proved that they stood and fought when needed.