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Irony In 'The Red Badge Of Courage'

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Every time someone opens up a book there is a story waiting to be read, and inside of that story is themes waiting to be discovered. Ever book out there today has some sort of theme to the book, if it didn’t there would be no point in having the book at all. The themes may not jump out of the book at you, but they are there waiting to be discovered by the readers. A very special book called “The red badge of Courage,” by Stephen Crane, is a book filled with themes that jump out at every turn, and now it is our turn to tell the tale of the themes that lie in wait to be discovered in “The red badge of Courage.” One of the first themes that I came across in the book is Irony. According to Carol B. Hafer the books is filled with irony, with any way …show more content…

“In the first place, the title The Red Badge of Courage is itself ironic; for the badge that Henry receives is a badge of shame or absurdity, rather than a badge of courage. Henry's badge is a blow on the head given him by one of his own comrades when Henry blocks his retreat in an attempt to obtain the latest news about the progress of battle, not a bullet sustained in combat against the enemy.”(Hafer) The red badge of courage is supposed to be a wound given to the solider by the battle itself, and not wound from one of this own comrades. The battle wound states that the person was brave enough to give their own life for the country that they love. “At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge

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The excerpt we read from Stephen Crane's novel The Red Badge of Courage and Yusef Komunyakaa's poem camouflaging the Chimera have some similarities and differences apart from them being decades apart. Some of the similarities and differences between the two works include themes, language, and genre. The themes of the works are very different because in Crane's piece the theme is about one young soldier who wants to be remembered after the civil war as war hero and eventually have a statue built in his honor. In Komunyakaa's piece the point of view of a whole group of soldiers.

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On his way back to the base he comes across a column of wounded soldiers. Specifically, a tattered man who has been shot twice and speaks proudly of the fact. Feeling envious, Henry wishes “…that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage” (Crane, p.67) that he could claim. He and the tattered man together try find their way back to base. He starts to question Henry about how he found his way so far from the rest and his ‘injuries’.

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In “the Red Badge of Courage” the Narrator only focuses on one main character “the youth,” Henry Fleming's is more of an outsider. Henry is just watching other soldiers fight while he’s doing his own. “The separation was as great to him as if they had marched with weapons of flame and banners of sunlight. He could never be like them.” It tells us how isolated he is.

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Henry was immediately doubting the choice that he had just made, to go off to war at such a young age and leaving his family. Henry on the other hand ran from battle, he jumped and ran, like a coward, Henry didn’t get shot during the war, but he did get hit in the head with the end of someone’s gun while fleeing from battle, he thought he had been shot, Henry even told his best friend Wilson that he had been shot in the back of the head. Henry did make it through the war, he didn’t die in war, but he survived it, but the book Red Badge of Courage was more about pure irony and rage and

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In battle, there are many ways to be put in the wrong position. A few erratic decisions can cause lifelong problems. In “The Red Badge of Courage” Stephan Crane shows the many situations in battle during the Civil War in 1860. Henry Fleming, also known as “The Youth,” made many notable decisions that would consider him a coward rather than a hero. Henry demonstrates a coward because he ran during the battle, deserted the tattered soldier, and lied to the other soldiers.

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How Does Frederick Douglass Present The Theme Of The Red Badge Of Courage

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