Stephen Crane, author of The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War (1895), was born on November 1, 1871 and died on June 5, 1900. He was born in New York into a progressive family, helping him identify with the poor because while rejecting social and religious traditions. Crane was a contradiction because for someone who had an interest in war and violence, he was a gentle man (Baym 944). Crane was reader, but did not excel academically; however, he did excel in his literary career and in journalism (Ball). Before The Red Badge of Courage, Crane wrote Maggie, A Girl of the Streets, which highlighted the realities of life for a poor woman in the late 1890’s (Baym 945). Crane took a realistic approach he would later take in The Red Badge of Courage. …show more content…
According to Dr. Ball, Professor at Wake Technical Community College, Crane did not fight in the Civil War because he was not born at the time, but he was able to create a realistic piece of literature because he was able to interview actual soldiers from Port Jarvis. Crane also in College had a friend who was a civil war veteran, and through him and the other veterans, he was able to create psychological realism in The Red Badge of Courage. Red Badge would become critically acclaimed when Crane was at the young age of twenty-four. Crane continued to write poems and short stories that reflected his social ideas. Towards the end of Crane’s life he was in serious debt and tried to repay it by writing. He still wrote thought provoking works, but that would end as he died at the age of twenty-eight (Bayam