Pride In Stephen Crane's The Red Badge Of Courage

The True Meaning of Pride in Stephen Crane’s

The Red Badge of Courage

Throughout all of mankind, it is common for one’s hamartia to get the best of oneself. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane is novel that revolves around the idea of pride. Taking place in the Civil War with main characters Henry Fleming and Wilson at the battle of Chancellorsville, these young soldiers’ strive for the goal of becoming heros with “a red badge of courage”(Crane 41). Through these main characters, pride is defined not by words, but rather by actions.

As Crane’s protagonist, Henry Fleming, progresses through the novel, Henry skirmishes internally with his own immaturity and false accusations of being a hero when he isn’t yet. To start of with, Henry enlists in the army due to his romanticism for war as well as his interpretation of “glory”(Crane 4) and his expectations of “thought-images of heavy crowns and high

Paralleling Henry,Crane uses motif by giving Wilson a moniker: “the Loud one” (as first mentioned in page 2). Though both characters have monikers, Wilson as oppose to Henry is more verbose and boastful throughout the novel. For instance, Wilson before the battle begins to make remarks such as “we’ll lick em good” (Crane 14). Not only does he make this remark, but when henry asks him if he’ll ever run when the time comes, Wilson replies “Run? Run?- Of course not!” (Crane 14). Eventually, when the time does come, unlike Henry, he stays and fights during the first battle in the whole novel. Once the battle is over, no more is Wilson ‘the loud one” (Crane 2), but is now humble and veteran-like as to when he was first introduced. The fact that Wilson changed and became humble shows us Crane's use of irony that he implements on wilson through usage of motif, which reveals that actions do indeed justify ones pride more than ones