character analysis of the red badge of courage
... state of mind thinking that war is so deadly and horrible when in fact he should be mentally preparing himself and building his confidence. “They will all die like pigs.”(Crane 29). Before the fighting even begins he is already saying that he will die a quick and meaningless death. “Once he thought he had concluded that it would be better to get killed directly and end his troubles.”(Crane 35). Clearly he is looking for an easy way out by just getting killed and getting it over with than to fight bravely and with honor. Henry is scared. Henry is a rookie soldier with no experience of the trauma and gore of a battle scene. It is only natural to be frightened. “His eyes grew wide and busy with the action of the scene.”(Crane 36). His first glimpse of war is terrifying. Eyes wide, mouth hanging ajar, he is frozen with fear thinking this is the battle he has to join. “He feared that all of the untried men possessed a great and correct confidence.”(Crane 14). This is sort of like the first quote in which he believes that he is the only one with any problems and that all of the others had a god-like strength and confidence, whereas he trembles at the sight of battle. “He was afraid to make an open declaration of his concern, because he dreaded to place some unscrupulous confident upon the high plane of the unconfessed from which elevation he could be derided.”(Crane 16). He is afraid to expose how scared he is because he fears that people would laugh and ridicule him. The catalytic event in Henry’s progression is Jim Conklin’s death. Jim was the only person that Henry could really talk to amidst the fear and the fighting. They had bonded in the beginning of the war because of their common fear and had kept each other in high spirits. When he dies, Henry feels he has no one to turn to for confidence and to work out personal problems, “His face had been twisted into an expression of ever agony he had imagined for his friend.”(Crane 78). Henry is horrified at his friend’s demise. Especially since it was such a painful death. Now Henry is enraged and seeks revenge. “The youth turned, with sudden, livid rage toward the battlefield.”(Crane 78). This expresses how Henry will now fight with a new passion sparked by his friend’s death. After Jim’s death, Henry shows a variety of new and impressive characteristics. Henry is now optimistic. After watching his friend die, Henry realizes that there are many things that are much more important than his pathetic little problems and he starts thinking positively. “Yet gradually, he mustered force to put the sins at a distance.” (Crane 182). He is pushing his worries aside to think about more important things like his future after the war. “He found that he could look back upon the brass and bombast of his earlier gospels and see them truly.” (Crane 182). Henry now sees that the things he was complaining about earlier really weren’t as terrible as he had made them out to be. For now he has seen true pain and agony and he appreciates what he has. “Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him.” (Crane 183). Henry sees new opportunities that lie ahead now that he had survived what he thought was the impossible. Henry is now proud. “With the conviction came a store of assurance.”(Crane 182). This shows that now he can look back on the past and not feel as bad, he is proud of himself. These next two quotes, “He was a man,” (Crane 182) and, “…his soul changed. He came from hot plowshares to prospects of clover tranquility.” (Crane 183), prove that Henry has finally found that self respect and confidence that he lacked so much in the beginning of the book. In the beginning he would have run or tried to find the easy way out, whereas with this new confidence he stands his ground and declares himself a man like in the quote a...