Naturalistic Interpretation Of The Heroism In The Red Badge Of Courage

Stephen Crane is renowned as the pioneer of American Naturalism in the late 19th and early 20th century for his great contribution to American literature. Although his short lifespan only lasts for 29 years, he left to the world great amount of literary treasures. Stephen Crane is a common writer who has never been participated in any wars, but to people's surprise, he accomplished his masterpiece The Red Badge of Courage, one of the famous war novels in early American literary history.This novel not only shows some color of American Naturalism, but also describes American Heroism, the unavoidable theme of war. However, Stephen Crane portrays a picture of new heroism and an image of a new hero in the naturalistic way. The naturalistic writing pays attention to the living conditions of the lower-class people, thus in Crane's writing, his hero is more humble and helpless. Compared with the quintessence of those great heroes in ancient Greek mythology, Crane's mold of hero is as common as everybody else, even less as brave as them:the hero is not courageous and fortitudinous in the first place, however, he is cowardly, timid and is always ready for escape. It is under the influence of natural environment that this ordinary man finally becomes a real hero. Then comes the indication: as part of nature, a hero is at first an ordinary man, and he has his instinctive reaction towards the nature he is in. So, in order to be more close to real life and to reveal another kind of heroism, this paper would analyze the novel's heroic idea through a naturalistic approach.In this paper, the exploring of Stephen Crane's heroism in the novel falls into four main parts:In the first chapter, the definition of heroism, naturalism as well as Crane's heroism would be firstly introduced. Then in the second chapter, through the descriptions of the archetypal images of ancient Greek heroes, the paper introduces the hero, Henry Fleming, as an ordinary man in the natural world with many defects:he is cowardly, vain and is eager to cover mistakes. The third chapter discusses an ordinary man becomes a hero under the influence of natural environment. This is the chapter in which Henry bears the fiercest mental struggles. At last, the sublimation of Henry's spirit symbolizes the return of the hero and indicates that it is natural environment that shapes a real hero. Eventually, this paper would elevate to a conclusive point about the significance in real life:Stephen Crane not only opened a new way to describe the warfare, but also created a new style of heroism.