A COWARD HERO IN STEPHEN CRANE’S THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE (1895)

Heroism, primarily in wars, has always been one of the focal points in the world literature. In this regard, lots of authors have produced works tackling this issue. Authors either produced their works which were based on true observations or narrations. The most important figures are the war heroes. When Stephen Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage, a very well-known novel of American Literature, he was a fairly young guy with no war experience. Looking at the usual war novels, it is expected to draw the flawless portrait of a hero. In those plots, all the ideal heroes are to leave their family back, willingly committed and ready enough to die, perpetually suffer for their country, and never complain no matter what. This portrait has been drawn for a hero all through the course of time in our collective history of the human kind.

                Though quite many critics argue that out of a farm boy Crane creates a real hero at the end of the novel, named Henry Fleming, he proves to be a coward instead of a hero. The diversion of Crane is very clear in that unlike all the other war novels, he flawlessly draws the psychological portrait of a hero in questioning himself and his glorified deeds. This article presents, with all the drawbacks and upheavals of Henry’s being too much preoccupied with the idea of battle in his inner self. You are supposed to find the innovation of Crane by creating a fully human being in front of the heroic deeds either to accept or defy them unlike all the other usual war novels.