Essay on Fantasies and Realities in Red Badge Of Courage

Fantasies and Realities in The reddened Badge Of Courage In The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane the main character, heat content Fleming, thought he understood the war between the northwestern and the South. However, his perceptiveness came from his knowledge of fairy tales and mythology(Gibson 21). henry thought that he was like the heroes that he read about in these stories. He soon learned that authentic war was very different from his imaginative expectations. Crane took henrys fantasies and contrasted them with the realities of the war to develop this main character into a mature person. Henry spent his early life on a farm in Virginia. Henrys perception of the world was shaped almost only if by the books his mother gave him to read. After the war started, the newspapers carried accounts of great battles, in which the North was victor. Almost every day the newspapers printed accounts of decisive victory(Walcutt), Henrys mother was reluctant to let her son leav e home and go South to do battle against the Confederate Army. She knew that Henrys spate of war was not what war is really like. She tried to get Henry to change his mind about joining the army, but she was unsuccessful because tales of the war in his own country inevitably began to move him. They many not be distinctly Homeric, but there seemed to be much honor in them(Cody 122). Henry is motivated by his heroic expectations of great things(Colvert 97) as well as his keen interest and curiosity about what he views as the elements of war. Henry thought that if one did not get a red badge of courage, then he was a coward. Henry had battles in his mind. Fleming would pass into an absorptive trance in which... ...n, IA Perfection Learning Corporation, 1979. Gibson, Donald B. The Red Badge of Courage Redefining the Hero. Boston Twayne Publishers, 1988. Lowell, Amay. Introduction. The Work of Stephen Crane The Black Riders and opposite Lines. By Stephen Crane. Vol. VI. 1926. Rpt. i n Discovering Authors. Vers 1.0. CD-ROM. Detriot Gale, 1992. Magill, Frank N., Magills Survey American literature Realism to 1945. California Salem Press, Inc., 1963. Walcutt, Charles C. Stephen Crane Naturalist and Impressionist in his American Literary Naturalism, a Divided Stream, University of Minnesota Press. 1956. Rpt. in Discovering Authors. Vers 1.0 CD-ROM. Detriot Gale, 1992. Wolford, Chester L. Stephen Crane. lively Survey of Long Fiction. Ed. Frank N. Magill. English Language Series. Vol. 2. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Salem Press, 1991.