A Study Of Modernist Features In The Red Badge Of Courage

Stephen Crane is a prominent American novelist and poet in late 19th century. His life is very short and comes to death when he is 29. Throughout his life, Crane published 5 novels, 2 collections of poetry, more than 300 short stories, reports and special features. Therefore, Crane is called"Chatterton in American Literature."Different people have different interpretations on the Crane's classic The Red Badge of Courage. People are inclined to see the novel as the growth of the youth through the ordeal of the war. However, the end of the novel does not clearly indicate that the protagonist, Henry Fleming, has achieved such essential change. In the novel Crane criticizes the traditional idea that war is glorious. What presented to the reader is the absurd scene. When the battle is over, the brigade comes to its previous front. It seems that nothing has happened. War is"nightmare"and soldiers become furious animals without reason. Everything is full of chaos. Crane's concept of war is against the traditional idea. And his writing style exerts far-reaching influence on the following writers.When modernist novels mentioned, we are inclined to think of Lawrence, Joyce, Woolf and Faulkner. Crane is rarely classified as a modernist writer compared with his contemporaries, such as Henry James and Joseph Conrad who highly praised the genius of Crane. Stephen Crane is traditionally labeled as a naturalist, realist, impressionist or even symbolist. Indeed, there is no denying that the above elements could be found in Crane's works. However, through close reading, I find out rich modernistic features in Crane's works. Therefore, I choose The Red Badge of Courage as an example to explore Crane's modernistic technique and modernistic motifs, such as limited point of view, stream of consciousness, symbolic method, isolation, etc. This thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter One is a general introduction to this thesis. It includes a brief introduction to Crane's life and his masterpiece The Red Badge of Courage, literature review, the motives for choosing this topic, and the structure of the thesis.Chapter Two deals with the relationship of Crane and Modernism. This chapter falls into three sections. The first section examines the relationship of Crane & Impressionism. As a writing technique, impressionism is widely adopted by many modernists. One striking feature of impressionism is its shift from the outside world to the inner being of the experience. The second section deals with the general features of modernist novel. The third section analyzes Crane's experimentation with writing technique, which distinguishes him from other traditional writers. Hence, StephenCrane is regarded as the pioneer of modernist novels. Chapter Three focuses on analyzing Crane's masterpiece The Red Badge of Courage to illustrate the application of modernistic technique in detail. First of all, I put emphasis on analyzing limited narrative method in The Red Badge of Courage. The story develops according to the center of consciousness through which the apprehension of events is filtered. The presence of the author is shunned. This narrative mode is a natural way to perceive the world. Secondly, I analyze the experimentation with new device of stream of consciousness to illustrate the psychological truth of the protagonist. In addition, the implementation of symbolic technique is discussed which adds to the uncertainty of the work and makes the novel tinted by modernist color.Chapter Four stresses on modernistic motifs reflected in the novel. That is, the illusion and isolation of human beings, indifferent relationship between Man and Nature, and human's inability of perceiving the world. The traditional belief"war is glorious"collapses. War is depicted as an absurd world, imbued with disorder and chaos. The protagonist feels isolated and frustrated. The harmonious relationship between man and nature gives way to coldness and indifference. Human's perception is challenged, and man loses the ability of seeing the world and himself correctly.Chapter Five is the conclusion of the thesis. We can safely hold, through the analysis in the paper, that Crane is a true pioneer of the modernist novels.