The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane | Teen Ink

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

April 14, 2011
By Anonymous

Red Badge of Courage Recommendation



I would recommend The Red Badge Of Courage by Stephen Crane. The Genre is Social Issues and the copy right date is 1979. I would recommend this book because of its heroics, courage and the involvement of the civil war.

First the book starts off with a young soldier named Hennery who is ready to join the union side for the civil war. Hennery joins the civil war and starts off as a coward and very nervous about getting shot. Once hennery joins his regiment he begins to be called, “The Youth” and the other soldiers get nicknames too based on their physical appearance. Hennery starts off the first battle cowardly and almost does not fire his gun and not popping his head out of the crowd. However, they win the battle and Hennery runs into the woods because of the thought of his comrades thinking about his cowardly acts once he got back to camp.
He is first confronted with a dead union soldier with ants crawling all over and decides that he does not want to risk is life being a coward. He ends up running hearing musket shots and goes towards the noise. Once he reaches the noise he meets a wondering tattered soldier who talks about how he cannot die. The Youth eventually leaves the soldier and meets up with soldiers that are retreating and screaming and so the youth tries to ask what just happened and gets clubbed in the head with a rifle. This is shown on page 118, “He adroitly and fiercely swung his rifle.” He decides to crawl into a hidden spot from battle and eventually gets up and travels back to camp. Once The Youth gets back to camp he makes up the excuse that he had been shot and everybody thought he was dead. The youth slept for a very long time and eventually woke up and eats breakfast with a nurse and gets ready for the next battle. In the next battle the youth gains courage and starts to fight in the front lines firing as many shots as he could with rage. The Youth also recovers the Union flag that was almost dropped during battle. He and his comrades fight a very long fight with the Confederates constantly retreating but they eventually won and caught four prisoners which where questioned. On the way back to camp Hennery reflects on how his battle went.
This constant showing of action and fighting would appeal to several people. This book also shows the development of heroics over time and how bravery is in everybody, even though you may not know it. This is shown when the Youth comes from being a coward like soldier and gains heroics and starts to fight in the front lines. The turn of events happened when the soldier runs into the dead soldier next to a tree running form his regiment of soldiers. I definitely recommend this book to a middle school student because of the amount of action and its plot about heroics and bravery.

In closing I would recommend this book because of its evolution of heroics and courage and its involvement with the civil war.



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