On The Writing Techniques In The Red Badge Of Courage

Stephen Crane is one of the most talented American writers in the nineteenthcentury, and he became well-known overnight in 1895 on the publication of The RedBadge of Courage. As Crane's masterpiece and the crest of his writing career, thenovel is considered as a classic of war novels about American Civil War. And thisthesis is devoted to the study of the writing techniques in this very novel.The thesis consists of three chapters, discussing the writing techniques in thenovel from three aspects.Chapter One is mainly about the psychological description in The Red Badge ofCourage. Having the American Civil War as its settings, the novel portraits thetwo-day battle of a young recruit. However, what the author concentrates on is not thebattle itself, but the protagonist's feelings in it. The book deals less in externalviolence than in the mental state, the emphasis of it being not on the plot of the storybut on the portrayal of psychological activities and the analysis of the inner struggles.And it gives prominence to the protagonist's psychological reaction to the outsideworld in his development from puerility to maturity. The whole book is just like along dialogue—a dispute between the two selves of the hero Henry Fleming, and thebattle scenes just serve as the background.Chapter Two mainly deals with the use of Impressionistic techniques in The RedBadge of Courage.The narrative method of the novel is the limited third-person narration. Cranepresents the whole story, from minute to minute, to the reader, centering on Henry'spsychological activities in different surroundings and different psychological stages.And the narrator's restrictiveness, or limitedness, limits what the reader gets withinthe personal opinions. What the reader can get is just what Henry sees, what he hears,and what he thinks, and thus subjective. We can see from it the psychologicalinfluence of war on a common soldier. The story begins in an omniscient narration ofthe outside world. But as soon as the protagonist Henry is introduced, the center ofintelligence is his, and his inner world is displayed to the reader. In this way, thereader can both probe into Henry's thoughts and have a picture of his conditions andsurroundings. Because of his immaturity, he makes various conjectures as to theabundant limited fragments of sensations, and displays to the reader the blurred,transient and instantaneous impressions. Therefore, what the reader gets is usuallyfragmental, incomplete, and even distorted.Driven by different feelings, Henry has different apprehension of hissurroundings in different psychological stages. The author lays stress on Henry'spersonal feelings, and the reader is impressed a lot by the use of images in the novel.Firstly, colors pervade in the novel. The reader can seldom find a page without colors,most of which bear symbolic meanings. For example, "red" is often associated withwar, blood, death, and indignant spirits. And "black" is often symbolic of fury, hatred,death, the unknown, and so on. Crane also uses a number of animal images in thenovel for the exhibition that war unhumanizes man and causes him to lose his senses.The nature of human beings shows itself in the conditions of life and death, blood andfire. The man who loses his senses and humanity in war reveals only his bare instincts,and what he has is just the blind fear, the blind impulses and fury, and the instincts forlife. These images show that war is cruel, and that man is weak, helpless andchickenshit in face of war. Found in the whole process of Henry's development from acoward to a hero, animal images are used frequently in the novel to describe Henry'spsychological activities and practical behaviors in every stage of his growth, and tomanifest the author's criticism on war. The appellations in the novel bear impliedmeanings, and lay out the ruthlessness of war since it causes man to lose hisindividuality.Chapter Three is the discussion of the use of irony in The Red Badge of Courage.The title itself is used in an ironic way. And Crane employs a mass of ironies tocriticize Henry's self-praise, self-pity, self-esteem, cowardice, deceit and self-deceit,and his unprovoked superiority. They help to express the author's antipathy of war:war is ridiculous, cruel, horrible, and throws man off his trolley.In his fantastic imagination, unique narrative method, vivid images, and originalironic language, Crane displays to the reader a lively picture of war. The reader readsthe novel as if he were able to hear the guns and shells, to be personally on the battlescenes, and to feel like a soldier. And he is made to think over war, nature, and thevalue of the human beings.