The Red Badge Of Courage Essay :: essays research papers

The Red mark of Courage is non a war novel. It is a novel about life history. This novel illustrates the trials and tribulations of ein truthday life. Stephen stretch out uses the war as a comparison to everyday life. He is semi-saying that life is like a war. It is a struggle of warriors&8212the every day flock&8212against the odds. In these battles of everyday life, heap can change. In The Red Badge of Courage, the main character, enthalpy Fleming, undergoes a character change that shows how people must overcome their fears and the invisible barriers that hold them back from being the best people&8212warriors, in the reason that life is war&8212they can be. Henry has a character change that represents how all humans have general sense of fear of the unknown that must be overcome. In the first ramify of the novel, Henry is a youth that is very inexperienced. His motives were impure. He was a very selfish and self- function character. He enters the war not for the basis of serving his country, but for the attainment of glory and prestige. Henry wants to be a hero. This represents the intrinsic human characteristic of selfishness. Humans have a want and a need to satisfy themselves. This was Henrys main motive throughout the first calve of the novel. On more than one occasion Henry is resolved to that subjective selfishness of human beings. After Henry realizes that the attainment of glory and heroism has a price on it. That price is by wounds or worse yet, death. Henry then becomes self-serving in the fact that he wants to survive for himself, not the Union army. There is many a time when Henry wants to cut his natural fear of death. He is at a point where he is questioning deserting the battle in order to justify this, he asks Jim, the eminent soldier, if he would run. Jim declared that hed thought about it. Surely, thought Henry, if his companion ran, it would be alright if he himself ran. During the battle, when Henry actually did take flight, he justify this selfish deed&8212selfish in the fact that it did not service his regiment hold the Rebs&8212by natural instinct. He proclaimed to himself that if a squirrel took flight when a rock was thrown at it, it was alright that he ran when his life was on the line.