The Red Badge of Courage

“The Red Badge of Courage” is a tale of an average man who is put into an extreme situation and at first he fails himself but to others he appears a hero. He does not believe he is a hero because he ran from battle and was hit by one of his fellow soldiers and when he returned home they believed him to have been wounded in battle. He is ashamed of this honor that people believe he has earned but the guilt of being a coward haunts him and makes him want to redeem himself. He enters the war again to truly earn his Red Badge of Courage. When he entered for the second time he zones out into the perfect soldier afraid of nothing. His courage this time comes from his want to become a better and honorable man. "He craved a power that would enable him to make a world-sweeping gesture and brush all back. His impotency appeared to him, and made his rage into that of a driven beast"(Crane 493). This focus of his mind and what he wants helps him come out of the war unharmed the second time. He wants to become an honorable man which is something that Thoreau and Emerson liked in people. They wanted people to become their own men and to live up to their own expectations. Emerson and Thoreau were against government, so they would not be happy about the man first entry into the army by force but they were against war all together so this goes against the idea of peaceful resolutions. “Buried in the smoke of many rifles his anger was directed not so much against the men whom he knew were rushing toward him as against the swirling battle phantoms which were choking him, stuffing their smoke robes down his parched throat”(Crane 493). This feeling of being trapped by this thought and feeling of his guilt were worse than the actually war according to him. Emerson and Thoreau would be glad for this man taking charge of his life and making his own ideas about life.

Crane, Stephen."The Red Badge of Courage." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009.493. Print.