Red Badge of Courage :: essays research papers

Is it Sweet and Fitting to lapse for Ones Country?Stephen Cranes The Red badge of Courage is truly a unique book because it challenges the common perceptions of the cultured War. The fight for freedom and the American way of life were how writers such as Fredrick Douglass and Walt Whitman portrayed the Civil War. Crane challenges these principles by concentrating on the day-to-day world the regiments of the North faced. Since the Norths main goal was to abolish slavery, they ar remembered to be a group of men who were well equipped and vigilant for battle because they represented the morality of the war. However, the North is shown through Crane to be a group of amateurs who are untested, lack discipline, and do not jimmy the opportunity to fight for their country and their way of life. In this sense, The Red mark of Courage relates to life for how it is instead of how people want to remember it to be. perverted to Crane, Cicero once wrote Dulce et decorum est pro patria mor i (It is sweet and fitting to die for stars country). Stephen Cranes The Red Badge of Courage begins as a validation of these sentiments of Cicero although, the rationale of the sentiment is challenged throughout the story, Cicero outlook is last shown to be true in the last battle scene.In the first gear of The Red Badge of Courage, the main character, hydrogen, has preconceived ideals of war that lead him to intrust that it is sweet and fitting to die for ones country. The young pass and the youth are nicknames for total heat and are used throughout the tonic to convey the characteristics of his youth. Henry had a false sense of what war is rightfully like because his lack of experience causes him to compares war to epic ancient battles. He idealistically thinks that his first battle will be one of those great personal business of the earth (45). Henry desperately wants to follow in the footsteps of Ancient Grecian heroes and become a hero himself. He naively believes in the handed-down forms of honor and courage. Dreams of the image of a dead soldier being fit(p) upon his shield, following the Greek tradition of dying in battle, fill Henrys head. He lacks experience in war so he can only imagine what it is truly like. The lack of experience makes Henry over zealous for battle and makes his belief in his inevitable grandness seem vain and self-centered.