We all read it in high school. For me, that's too far back for me to feel comfortable with. I remember exactly three things about the novel. First, the protagonist, though named, is generally called "the youth" by the author throughout the work. Second, I recall the youth walking down a country lane with wounded soldiers all about, encountering this one and that, and feeling guilty for he had no wound ("red badge"). And third, I remember getting an A on the essay I had to write for it, and essay that was really me writing what the teacher wanted to hear, me not having really digested and internalized the story and the themes.
May I suggest to you to throw off those high school blinders, and try the book as an adult? It's a slim little thing, a novella really, and you can read it over the course of two nights. I did, and I'm not a speed reader. I like to get pulled in and savor the scenery, get to know the characters and feel like I'm a part of the action. Crane allowed me to do this, and for a brief moment in my life, I felt like I actually experienced to terrible thrill of war.
The story focuses on Henry Fleming, a very young new enlistee in the Union army sometime during the middle of the Civil War. Henry - "the youth" - is extremely introspective and right at that place in life where one questions his character and destiny. We follow the youth over the course of a few days and a few battles. First, a long stretch of waiting, marching, waiting, marching, waiting, camping, waiting, and marching. Rumors flow freely among the soldiers about action any day now ... any day now ... any day now - and before our protagonist realizes it, rebels are crawling up the forest toward his position and bullets begin flying.
Initially the youth performs well during the his first dreamlike and timeless taste of warfare. But as rebel forces regroup and press forward again, believing the rest of the line has retreated, he turns and runs ... and runs. The bulk of the book is how he faces up with this stain of cowardice, especially during those scenes I mentioned earlier, where he comes face to face with maimed and dying men, some of whom he knew, some he meets and realizes he doesn't want to know. And all through it, he wrestles with what courage is, what it means to have it and lose it, and if it is possible to ever regain. The youth does, to a certain extent, and his redemption is found in giving himself up to something greater than his own self. That seems to be the key Crane is proffering; that seems to be the key in all that I have ever read on the subject.
The other dominant theme in the work is the contrast between the boyish desire for glory in war and the terrible disillusionment often found in those lucky enough to survive it. The reader can see this clearly as we are carried along in Henry's head over the course of a few days, and I found it a strangely natural development, as if I myself were thinking these thoughts and not having a writer with an agenda - and I use that word without negative shading - pull me along by the hand. It was a refreshing experience for me, since so much of today's entertainment, whether printed or televised, is so heavy-handed in its messaging.
Stephen Crane himself is someone worthwhile to learn about. Working as a sometime reporter and freelance writer and poet, he completed two novels, one of which is Red Badge, by the age of 22. The most striking thing for me, after reading this book, is that Crane had absolutely no combat experience. Later on he did travel to Cuba to cover the Spanish-American War, and later to Greece and England to write about conflict overseas. He died of tuberculosis, yet another brilliant mind taken way too early by that scourge.
Go ahead. Re-read it. Be drawn into the surreal nightmare of battle. Question what you would or would not do in the situations the youth finds himself in. Finish it and wonder about the courage of those way-too-young men who fought and died anonymously and forgotten in comparatively primitive circumstances, and think about whatever type of debt you may owe them and whether you are, in fact, living up to it.
Grade: A plus.
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