The Red Badge of Courage - Style and Genre

Style and Genre

The Red Badge of Courage has a distinctive style which is often described as naturalistic, realistic, impressionistic or a mixture of the three. Told in a third-person limited point of view, the novel reflects the inner-experience of Henry Fleming, a young soldier who flees from combat, rather than upon the external world around him. The Red Badge of Courage is notable in its vivid descriptions and well-cadenced prose, both of which help create suspense within the story. Critics in particular have pointed to the repeated use of color imagery throughout the novel, both literal and figurative, as proof of the novel's use of Impressionism. Blue and gray uniforms are mentioned, as are yellow and orange sunlight, and green forests, while men's faces grow red with rage or courage, and gray with death. Crane also uses animalistic imagery to comment upon people, nature, and war itself. For example, the novel begins by portraying the army as a living entity that is "stretched out on the hills, resting."

While the novel takes place during a series of battles, The Red Badge of Courage is not a traditional Civil War narrative. Focusing on the complex internal struggle of its main character, rather than on the war itself, Crane's novel often divides readers as to whether the story is intended to be either pro- or antiwar. By avoiding political, military and geographic details of the conflict between the states, the story becomes divorced from its historical context. Notably lacking are the dates in which the action takes place, and the name of the battle; these omissions effectively shift attention away from historical patterns in order to concentrate on the emotional violence of battle in general. The writer alluded to as much in a letter, in which he stated he wished to depict war through "a psychological portrayal of fear."

Writing more than thirty years after the novel's debut, author Joseph Conrad agreed that the novel's main struggle was internal rather than external, and that Fleming "stands before the unknown. He would like to prove to himself by some reasoning process that he will not 'run from the battle'. And in his unblooded regiment he can find no help. He is alone with the problem of courage." Crane's realistic portrayal of the psychological struck a chord with reviewers; as one contemporary critic wrote for The New York Press: "At times the description is so vivid as to be almost suffocating. The reader is right down in the midst of it where patriotism is dissolved into its elements and where only a dozen men can be seen, firing blindly and grotesquely into the smoke. This is war from a new point of view."

With its heavy use of irony, symbolism and metaphor, the novel also lends itself to less straightforward readings. As with many of Crane's fictional works, the novel's dialogue often uses distinctive local dialects, contributing to its apparent historicity; for example, Jim Conklin muses at the beginning of the novel: "I s'pose we must go reconnoiterin' 'round th' kentry jest t' keep 'em from gittin' too clost, or t'develope'm, or something". The ironic tone increases in severity as the novel progresses, especially in terms of the ironic distance between the narrator and protagonist. The title of the work itself is ironic; Henry wishes "that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage", echoing a wish to have been wounded in battle. The wound he does receive (from the rifle butt of a fleeing Union soldier), however, is not a badge of courage but a badge of shame.

By substituting epithets for characters' names ("the youth", "the tattered soldier"), Crane injects an allegorical quality into his work, making his characters point to a specific characteristic of man. There have been numerous interpretations concerning hidden meanings within The Red Badge of Courage. Beginning with Robert W. Stallman's 1968 Crane biography, several critics have explored the novel in terms of Christian allegory. In particular, the death of Henry Fleming's Christ-like friend, Jim Conklin, is noted for evidence of this reading, as well as the concluding sentence of chapter nine which refers to the sun as "fierce wafer" in the sky. John Berryman was one of the first critics to interpret the novel as a modern wasteland through which the protagonist plays the role of an Everyman. Still others read the novel as having a Naturalist structure, comparing the work to those by Theodore Dreiser, Frank Norris and Jack London.