The Red Badge of Courage

The Red Badge of Courage is post civil war writing. It takes place during what is known as the Naturalism period. The Naturalism period was supposedly based on the writings of the scientist, Charles Darwin(Sommers). Charles Darwin was an extremely intelligent man who discovered and made the whole idea of natural selection and survival of the fittest meaning that the best survived because they had all the traits that were wanted to survive. Also a common theme of naturalism is that there is a lot of pessimism. This is present in the red badge of courage. The guy is worried about being in the army, but he was excited to be in the army because he wanted to take the glory and everything whenever they won the war(Crane). However, he was pessimistic because he was always finding something to complain about. He was very pessimistic and he always seemed to be frantic. It is almost a little bit selfish to be in the war only to be able to take the glory of everything with the war. He should want to be in the army to help and fight for his country, but it is their prerogative to be in the army or not. Personally, I would not want to be in the army even if i got to get glory from everyone. I just do not think it is worth it i would be so scared to be in the army you could die, I just do not think it is worth the glory. He was pessimistic and worried about getting blown to bits in the army. If he really wanted to be in the army for the right reasons you would not be worried about dying and getting blown up you would be worried about your own country losing the war. However, it would be nice for everyone to love you for winning the war, but if you died in the war and then you won the war then you would not even be able to claim the prize of freedom or glory from other people so then you would have done everything for no reason other than wanting your children and everyone else to be able to prosper from your good doings.




Crane, Stephen. "Untitled Document." The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. Web. 27 Feb. 2012.

Sommers, Joseph Michael. "naturalism." In Maunder, Andrew. Facts On File Companion to the British Short Story. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CBSS450&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 27, 2012).