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Red Badge of Courage - In Battle, Man loses perspective

 

            In Stephen Crane's Red Badge Of Courage, a young soldier discovers not only the bitter-sweet sides of war, but himself as well. Throughout the work, Crane takes us, as well as the youth, on a journey to reveal the truth of warfare, and its effects on an individual. The tale is compromised .
             of many pitfalls and plateaus, and Crane utilizes different literary elements to convey these .
             scenarios to the reader. Impressionism, naturalism, color imagery, religious imagery, and word .
             systems are all taken advantage of to convey the main theme of this story; In battle, man loses .
             perspective.
             Impressionism, a literary technique used to portray a character's thought as opposed to .
             objective reality, is consistently allowing the youth to lose sight of reality. Often times, Henry, the .
             protagonist, views his surroundings in a completely different fashion then they are actually .
             occurring. He seems to do this mostly to justify his actions. It appears to be when he has made the .
             wrong decision that he prefers to find a way to vindicate his mistake instead of just confessing to his .
             erroneous ways. A prime example of this type of behavior is in the 5th chapter, where Henry runs .
             away from battle, and then attempts to rationalize his actions by convincing himself that he was not .
             alone in his decision and that it was in fact the smartest thing to do. Henry even went as far as .
             making himself believe that he had acted heroically. It is at points like this in the story that we .
             realize how young Henry still is, and that it is often the tendency of a younger person to pass the .
             blame, and not take responsibility for their own actions and decisions.
             .
             Naturalism, an extreme form of realism with a deeply rooted interest in nature, is used quite .
             effectively in this work. Crane applies it to this book by viewing humans as animals in a natural .
             world over which they have no control and are led by the examples set forth in nature, again .


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