Soldier's Courage: The Story Of Stephen Crane

“Soldier's Courage: The Story of Stephen Crane” states, "from beginning to end of his short life, he displayed an inborn irreverence for authority, thumbed his nose at conventional society, and was determined to walk his own path" (“Soldier's Courage: The Story of Stephen Crane” 1). Stephen Crane was an American author who led an unconventional and rebellious life and is most well known for his novel, The Red Badge of Courage, and for incorporating impressionism and naturalism into his works. Born in Newark, New Jersey on November 1, 1871, Stephen Crane was the son and fourteenth child of reverend Jonathon Crane and Mary Peck Crane (Wolford 3). On February 16, 1880 when Crane was only eight years old, his father unexpectedly died (Cady 21). After her husband’s death, Crane’s mother moved to Roseville, New Jersey leaving Crane behind with his
brother. Once she returned she lived in Port Jervis with Crane and her other son, William, for three years until moving to Asbury Park (“Soldier's Courage: The Story of Stephen Crane” 5). Growing up, Crane's childhood was not always the easiest. When he was just twelve years old and beginning the sixth grade, cranes family endured quite a few sufferings. This included the deaths of his brother's wife, Fannie, and the death of his sister Agnes (“Soldier's Courage: The
Chavez 2
Story of Stephen Crane” 5). Agnes' death really took a toll on Crane as he was very close with her. She taught him how to read and write despite their father's disapproval of novels (“Soldier’s Courage: The Story of Stephen Crane” 2, 4). Regardless of the fact that he did not have a strong formal education, Crane was shown excellent books growing up and had enough literary background to become an author (Moses 3). At first, Crane attended Lafayette College where he hoped to study engineering. However, shortly after failing his work there he transferred to Syracuse University in 1890 (Shuman 2). Crane initially learned about journalism by working in his brother’s bureau and also took part in his school’s newspaper; however, he was not very successful at first (Shuman 2). One of the reasons he was an unsuccessful journalist was because he was never able to get along with other journalist. They always saw him as pretentious and pompous (Cady 32-33). He was eventually successful when seven of his “Sullivan County Sketches” were published, which according to Shuman, gave him the encouragement he needed to pursue a literary career (Shuman 2). Throughout his life, Crane was very rebellious. He rebelled against the religion that he was brought up on, becoming a Methodist rather than being Presbyterian like his family, mostly his father (Cady 20). One of the main reasons Crane rebelled against his father and his teachings was simply because he did not know him very well (Cady 21). Crane felt he needed to revolt and since he felt more liberated when he was in college, he had eccentric and recalcitrant behavior in an effort to uncover his true self (Cady 20-21). Crane moved to New York to pursue a literary career. However, he struggled to make a living and most of the remainder of his life he lived a bohemian lifestyle. Cady states, “He began
Chavez 3 life in New York as he mostly continued in failure or success, stony broke….The impression one gets is that he lived by a wholly Bohemian code-borrowing and cadging when he had no money, wholly open-handed to others when he had” (Cady 30). In 1893 Crane published his novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, on his own (Wolford 3). He invested all of his money towards its publication; however, it was unsuccessful and was rejected repeatedly by many other firms, which left Crane penniless (Vosburgh 34). Crane lived with various friends after losing all of his money, jumping from one place to another. Eventually he moved into a studio with four other people for about seven or eight months, and it was in this time that he wrote The Red Badge of Courage (Vosburgh 34-35). Crane visited Florida at one point, and during his visit he met Cora Taylor, a night club owner who lived a bohemian lifestyle like him. Crane fell in love with her and she used him as a way to break free from her husband, who refused to get a divorce with her (Chowder 38-39). Crane and Taylor moved to England where they lived as a seeming husband and wife (Chowder 40). Crane’s health was beginning to severely dwindling in the spring of 1900. He and Cora, along with a doctor, nurses, maids, and their butler went to Badenweiler in Germany where they hoped Crane would get better. However, he shortly died on June 5 (Shuman 4-5). One of the most fascinating characteristics of Crane’s writing is his ability to incorporate naturalistic and impressionistic elements into his work (Perosa 80). He was one of the very first impressionists and used his writing to express innovative ways of viewing the world. According to Wolford, Crane being a nihilist, naturalist, symbolist, and imagist writer came from his impressionistic world view (Wolford 4). He was commended for being a “pure naturalist” and was exhorted to continue writing in that style, which he gladly accepted (Perosa 84).
Chavez 4
Naturalism and Impressionism can be found in many of Crane’s works such as The Red Badge of Courage, George’s Mother, An Episode of War, and The Open Boat (Perosa 94). Crane also includes realism in his writing. Crane, having been an adept reporter, was most definitely a realist (Moses 5). His realism is more intuitive than other writers’. The importance this has to literature lies in the fact that he focused not just on what occurred, but how it felt and why it was significant (Moses 5). One of Crane’s works is Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, a naturalistic story about how human lives are affected by their environment (Pizer 110). Wolford states: for the first time in American fiction, a novel had appeared in which there clearly was no better world, no ‘nice’ existence, no heaven on Earth. There was only the world of the stinking tenements, only the chaos of sweat and alcohol and seduction, only hell. Also for the first time, everything was accomplished impressionistically (5).
Crane depicts the Bowery in Maggie as a prison and battlefield which is used to describe the family and setting in the story (Pizer 111-112). Another novel Crane wrote that was not very popular was Active Service, which he wrote while reporting the Greco-Turkish War in 1897 (Wolford 8). Wolford describes this novel as being ‘banal and trite’ and having an absence of original and interesting characters, which is why it was unsuccessful. Even Crane himself thought it was a failure, once stating, “May heaven help it for being so bad” (Wolford 8). Crane’s most remarkable and successful work is The Red Badge of Courage. It was one of the first novels to query the prestige, honor, and glamour that came with war (Chowder 36). Crane makes distinctions between early societies, which awarded males’ belligerence and were
Chavez 5 continuously written about, and contemporary Western societies, which instead reprimand young men’s belligerence and views it as unethical (Tavernier-Courbin 2).
Crane spent most of his days when writing the novel studying and exploring different ideas for his tales. Every situation and character was considered and argued thoroughly before being put into the book (Vosburgh 35). Crane researched and studied the Civil War under a general and consulted with veterans to write The Red Badge of Courage, having never seen a battle. He visualized what kind of experiences someone in battle would have, being young and facing demise (Kincheloe 4). In the Red Badge of Courage, the psychiatric state that the soldiers were in during battle developed from the fact that Crane was a diligent analyzer of real soldiers’ experiences (Traill 58). Crane strived for originality in his work. He perfected his words and phrases repeating and residing deeply on each one. His work revolved around impressionism. It was who he was. And, although Crane did not anticipate or long to be a great man, he knew he would one day be eminent (Vosburgh
36).