The Red Badge Of Courage Character Analysis

When you become a man is different in every culture. In the Jewish culture you become a man when you are 13. In Mexico it is when you become 15. No matter the culture when you become a man is when that culture feel that you are able to take care of yourself. This is the question throughout the book The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. The protagonist of the story Henry Fleming is trying to figure out if he is a man in the toughest setting there is smack dab in the middle of a Civil War battlefield. Henry discovers a lot about himself at the beginning of the story Henry is not a man however he becomes a man by the end of the book.

At the beginning of the story Henry is not a man. “He yelled then with fright and swung about”(37). A man

There is a lot of things that lead to Henry becoming a man but it all comes together in the final few battles. Rudyard Kipling says “If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too”(1). This happens to Henry in one of the final battles the regiment is asked to charge the enemy right through the middle of an open field. When the General is telling the lieutenant what he needs to do he tells them “there’s th’ 304th. They fight like a lot ‘a mule drivers. I can spare them best of any” (95). Henry is nervous about this at first but then he trust himself and decided that he is going to prove these General wrong even though they are doubting his abilities. Kipling says “if you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss”(4) this will make you a man. Well Henry does this in the second to last battle most of his regiment has turned back but Henry is risking it all when the color bearer is shot. Henry grabs the flag and leads his regiment directly into the enemy. This is extremely risking and considering almost all of Henry regiment has either died or turned back this shows heroism and also becoming a man. “ ‘Well, well, well, ‘ he ses. ‘They deserve t’ be major generals.’’’ “(112). After the 2nd to last battle even the high ranking generals are saying how Henry should be promoted to be major