Analysis Of The Images In Maggie:A Girl Of The Street And Red Badge Of Courage

Stephen Crane is one of the most significant realistic writers,poets,and short story writers of America.Throughout his short life,he wrote many notable works,such as Maggie:A Girl of the Street,which was honored as the earliest naturalistic work of American literature.It tells a story about Maggie,a young girl from the Bowery,was driven to unfortunate circumstances by poverty and solitude.And The Red Badge of Courage,a novel that won Crane international reputation.It depicts the experience of Henry Fleming,a young private of the Union Army.As a young man,he longs for the war,but flees from the field of battle at the very beginning.However,he finally overcomes his cowardice and regains courage.This novel established Crane's position in American literatureIn these two works,Stephen Crane applied a number of images such as color images,animal images,machine images and nature images.With the use of these various images,Crane skillfully presented a vivid scene for the readers.For example.by using animal images and machine images.Crane successfully depicted the cowardice and his barbarity of the protagonist in the war.In case of the color images,by using a large number of deep or light color images,Crane presented a vivid picture of the war scenes.What's more,the colorful images also conveyed the masculinity or feminity of the male or female characters in both The Red Badge of Courage and Maggie:A Girl of the Streets.In addition,with his application of other nature images like suns,rivers,mountains,and forests.Crane revealed man's insignificance and the relationship between human and nature.The indifferent and calm nature images highlight the apathy of nature,especially when it was observing people's miserable life and tragic suffering.At the same time,individuals'insignificance and tininess in the face of nature are perfectly presentedThis paper tends to give a specific analysis of the color images,the animal images,the machine images and the natural images in Maggie:A Girl of the Streets and Red Badge of Courage,and their important role in delivering symbolic meanings or themes of these two works.