The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War

About the book

Henry Fleming enters military life carrying ideas of bravery that have been formed far from combat. As his regiment waits and moves, uncertainty gives him time to speculate about how he will behave when danger becomes real. Crane keeps the narrative close to Henry's changing sensations and judgments, making fear, shame, pride, and self-justification part of the action. Battle arrives as noise, obscured movement, fragmentary impressions, and decisions made without a clear view of the whole. The novel is less interested in explaining a campaign than in examining a person's unstable account of his own conduct. Its concentrated scenes challenge the heroic stories Henry wants to inhabit, asking what courage might mean when experience does not resemble the picture imagined beforehand.

• Courage and fear
• Self-judgment
• War

Why read it

For an intense portrayal of battle through a mind continually revising its own claims to bravery.

English text