Red Badge of Courage follows the story of a soldier on the Union side during the Civil War. The novel focuses on the main character, Henry Fleming, and his constant strive to become a hero in the eyes of his fellow soldiers. As we follow Henry throughout the story we learn that, initially, he is a coward. He is always found running away from battle, letting various men die on his watch because he is unable to stand the trials of battle. Again and again, he runs away from his problems, leaving the reader upset with the actions that Henry takes in the face of adversity, but eventually we see a change in Henry. This occurs when Henry sees Jim Conklin die due to his wounds, causing him to feel a whirlwind of emotions. It is at this moment where Henry sees how much of a coward he has been and, instead of running away, he decides to fight with a fury he has never seen in himself before. He turns into the soldier and hero he had strived to be from the beginning, someone who fights without fear and protects his own men.
The novel is more of a coming of age story than anything else. We see the child-like cowardice of Henry in the beginning of the story, where he is constantly running away from all the issues in his life, to the change into manhood. He is pushed into manhood and begins to fight head 0n, becoming a leader for his fellow soldiers, as he sets the example of having no fear in the field of battle. Henry turns into a real soldier who can make a change in the war.
I completely agree. I think the introduction to the extremities of war was scary for Henry, eliciting a natural instinct of survival to run away. However, the piling of guilt and emasculation transformed Henry into the soldier he originally wanted to be. Personally, I believe this transition coincides with Henry’s journey into manhood.
You’re absolutely right. We see Henry go through significant maturation of the mind and soul. Experiencing the brutality and destruction of the Civil War frightened him initially. He ran away from his fear of war, and quite possibly dying in battle. He began to feel too much guilt for being so cowardly and scared that he learned to face his fears and attack the challenge in front of him head on.
While I understand how it can be interpreted as a coming of age story, I disagree. I think a huge part of the trope of a coming of age story is the focus on individualism, and while we get that at times (specifically because the story focuses on Henry rather than taking on a third person omnipresent narrative) I think overall the story focuses on how war, life, death, and nature, do not care about the individual and in fact how war decays at the individual, transforming them into a statistic of either dead or alive. Because of this I see the novel as more of a anti-war story over a coming of age story
I agree that Henry starts off as a coward. He wants so badly to be courageous but when the time comes to fight, he flees. He keeps running away from his troubles until he finally returns to his regiment where he is granted a second chance. He faces his fears and leads his men to victory as a hero.