Red Badge Of Courage Theme Essay

In the novel Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, has three main themes in it. The three themes are brutality of war, facing fears, and indifference of nature. These themes build the character of Henry and help develop his character as the novel continues. This helps the reader to connect to the feeling of the main character. First in this novel, the theme of brutality of war is used to create a morbid feeling and to change the main. One the novel heavily uses is the heavy destruction left in wars path. Also it uses a sense of betrayal like here,”screaming that they were being fired upon from points which they had considered to be their own lines”(Ch20). This creates a sense of distrust in the novel between the leaders and the soldiers. But with all of this happening it can change someone and soon all these devastating things start to change Henry. The brutality of war is something that Henry did not know was real, not only did he not know of it he thought the opposite, that war was a magnificent thing. With these thoughts Henry originally has and the truth of brutality o war Henry has to face, these things change him. Furthermore, another theme used in the novel is facing fears. One thing Henry tries to do is to justify his fears instead of facing them as said here,” The youth of this tale felt gratitude for these words of his comrade. He feared that all of the untried men possessed great and correct confidence. He now was in a measure reassured”(Ch1). This shows his justification that he tries to make up by the feeling of others while his fears are just ignored. Meaning when he needs to be courageous the most his most likely action is to continue running from his fears. But even though he justifies his fears Henry searches for courage in places that are dangerous that could even lead to his death. This struggle for Henry to find courage builds the reader to want, to strive, for Henry to find his courage. Moreover in the novel is the theme of the indifference