How Does Henry Fleming Use Self Sacrifice In The Red Badge Of Courage

All great stories test a character’s strength of will by putting him or her through challenging situations. This is especially true in a novel that displays realism- a writing technique that accurately represents reality. The characters in a realist story are put through dangerous and stressful situations and forced to react unromantically. This is seen in the three novellas: The Red Badge of Courage, The Luck of Roaring Camp, and The Outcasts of Poker Flat.Characters such as Henry, who found bravery holding the flag, Kentuck, who found joy in trying to save The Luck, the Lieutenant, who found peace in unexpected strife, and Mother Shipton, ultimately found redemption in self-sacrifice that was faced in adverse circumstances and ultimately

At the beginning of the story, Henry is a naive young soldier who finds his worth in how others treat him. As he entered the army he “...basked in the smiles of the girls and was patted and complimented by old men, [and] he had felt growing within him the strength to do mighty deeds of arms” (6). Henry’s definition of bravery is strictly based on the praise he gets from others for his own actions. He has no sense of true courage or integrity that comes from within. After his first few battles,one in which he was forced to fight and the other in which he ran, Henry battles with his own internal demons. He struggles to reconcile his actions with his previous definition of courage and finds his own definition being forced to changed. After receiving his own red badge of courage and fighting in a battle successfully, Henry finds courage in becoming a piece of the war machine, a part of the cause behind the fighting. When he holds the flag he finds his purpose and is “...capable of profound sacrifices” and instead of wishing for a glorified death to gain ultimate praise he found that “...he thought of the bullets only as things that could prevent him from reaching the place of his endeavor” (118). As Henry held to the flag and led the soldiers without recognition, he found his true