Ernest Hemingway greatly admired Stephen Crane, and Hemingway"s direct, concise style and steely-eyed attention to the elemental challenges of human life is consistent with the literary precepts Crane lived by. In his introduction to his anthology Men at War: The Best War Stories of All Time (1942), which presents selections from the chosen works, Hemingway addresses the difficulty of excerpting The Red Badge of Courage. Courage. He writes, "I am sure [Crane] cut it all himself as he wrote it to the exact measure of the poem it is." By this time, Hemingway had established himself as the most important war writer since Stephen Crane. He writes, "I am sure [Crane] cut it all himself as he wrote it to the exact measure of the poem it is." By this time, Hemingway had established himself as the most important war writer since Stephen Crane.
Hemingway"s war experiences and literary career occurred in a sequence opposite to Crane"s. Born several years after the end of the Civil War, Stephen Crane was not personally acquainted with the battlefield; he relied on secondary sources for his facts and lore; he landed a job as a war correspondent because of his convincingly real Red Badge of Courage. Red Badge of Courage. Hemingway wrote his war masterpieces based on his own wartime experiences. Though he started out as a reporter for the Kansas City Star, he volunteered for service in World War I and drove an ambulance for the American Red Cross, an experience that led to his seminal novel A Farewell to Arms (1929). It tells the story of an American lieutenant who is wounded while serving as an ambulance driver on the Italian front line, and tragically juxtaposes a doomed love affair with the war effort. So accurate was Hemingway"s account of the Italian retreat that the book was immediately banned in Italy. Hemingway wrote his war masterpieces based on his own wartime experiences. Though he started out as a reporter for the Kansas City Star, he volunteered for service in World War I and drove an ambulance for the American Red Cross, an experience that led to his seminal novel A Farewell to Arms (1929). It tells the story of an American lieutenant who is wounded while serving as an ambulance driver on the Italian front line, and tragically juxtaposes a doomed love affair with the war effort. So accurate was Hemingway"s account of the Italian retreat that the book was immediately banned in Italy.
Later Hemingway covered the Spanish Civil War and gained an intimate knowledge of the landscape he would describe in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), his most popular novel. This somber book encompa.s.ses three days during which an American dynamite expert fighting for the loyalists makes a failed attempt to destroy a bridge and is left behind to die. In World War II, Hemingway worked again as a war reporter; Across the River and into the Trees the River and into the Trees (1950) came out of this experience. This novel, lambasted by most critics, chronicles a war-ravaged American colonel whose failing health mirrors Hemingway"s own physical decline. (1950) came out of this experience. This novel, lambasted by most critics, chronicles a war-ravaged American colonel whose failing health mirrors Hemingway"s own physical decline.
In more recent times, Tim O"Brien"s memoir If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home Box Me Up and Ship Me Home (1973) takes war writing to an even more realistic level. (The t.i.tle is the first two lines of a song soldiers sing during Army training; the second couplet is "Pin my medals to my chest/Tell my mom I did my best.") Whereas Hemingway based the plots, characters, and descriptions in his fiction on his experiences in wartime, O"Brien directly chronicles, with stark realism, the personal trauma he suffered fighting the "wrong war" : the American intervention in the civil war in Vietnam. Like Stephen Crane, O"Brien is concerned with the meaning of human courage and valor. Unlike the youth Henry Fleming, O"Brien is unable to flee; he is drawn, incomprehensibly, toward the horror, toward a war he had always opposed. If I Die in a Combat Zone painfully details events and images from the war in Vietnam-the mismanagement of American forces, the accidental sh.e.l.lings of villages, the red flesh and white bone of maimed soldiers and children, the invisibility of the enemy, unseen mines that render bodies unrecognizable, and the impossibility of communication. Tim O"Brien has also written of Vietnam with raw clarity in several short stories and novels, among them the fictional Going After Cacciato (1978), which won the National Book Award in 1979. (1973) takes war writing to an even more realistic level. (The t.i.tle is the first two lines of a song soldiers sing during Army training; the second couplet is "Pin my medals to my chest/Tell my mom I did my best.") Whereas Hemingway based the plots, characters, and descriptions in his fiction on his experiences in wartime, O"Brien directly chronicles, with stark realism, the personal trauma he suffered fighting the "wrong war" : the American intervention in the civil war in Vietnam. Like Stephen Crane, O"Brien is concerned with the meaning of human courage and valor. Unlike the youth Henry Fleming, O"Brien is unable to flee; he is drawn, incomprehensibly, toward the horror, toward a war he had always opposed. If I Die in a Combat Zone painfully details events and images from the war in Vietnam-the mismanagement of American forces, the accidental sh.e.l.lings of villages, the red flesh and white bone of maimed soldiers and children, the invisibility of the enemy, unseen mines that render bodies unrecognizable, and the impossibility of communication. Tim O"Brien has also written of Vietnam with raw clarity in several short stories and novels, among them the fictional Going After Cacciato (1978), which won the National Book Award in 1979.
COMMENTS & QUESTIONS.
In this section, we aim to provide the reader with an array of perspectives on the text, as well as questions that challenge those perspectives. The commentary has been culled from sources as diverse as reviews contemporaneous with the work, letters written by the author, literary criticism of later generations, and appreciations written throughout the history of the book. Following the commentary, a series of questions seeks to filter Stephen Crane"s The Red Badge of Courage through a variety of points of view and bring about a richer understanding of this enduring work.
Comments GEORGE WYNDHAM.
Mr. Stephen Crane, the author of The Red Badge of Courage The Red Badge of Courage (London: Heinemann) , is a great artist, with something new to say, and consequently, with a new way of saying it. His theme, indeed, is an old one, but old themes re-handled anew in the light of novel experience are the stuff out of which masterpieces are made, and in (London: Heinemann) , is a great artist, with something new to say, and consequently, with a new way of saying it. His theme, indeed, is an old one, but old themes re-handled anew in the light of novel experience are the stuff out of which masterpieces are made, and in The Red Badge of Courage The Red Badge of Courage Mr. Crane has surely contrived a masterpiece. He writes of war-the ominous and alluring possibility for every man, since the heir of all the ages has won and must keep his inheritance by secular combat. The conditions of the age-long contention have changed and will change, but its certainty is coeval with progress: so long as there are things worth fighting for fighting will last, and the fashion of fighting will change under the reciprocal stresses of rival inventions. Hence its double interest of abiding necessity and ceaseless variation. Of all these variations the most marked has followed, within the memory of most of us, upon the adoption of long-range weapons of precision, and continues to develop, under our eyes, with the development of rapidity in firing. And yet, with the exception of Zola"s Mr. Crane has surely contrived a masterpiece. He writes of war-the ominous and alluring possibility for every man, since the heir of all the ages has won and must keep his inheritance by secular combat. The conditions of the age-long contention have changed and will change, but its certainty is coeval with progress: so long as there are things worth fighting for fighting will last, and the fashion of fighting will change under the reciprocal stresses of rival inventions. Hence its double interest of abiding necessity and ceaseless variation. Of all these variations the most marked has followed, within the memory of most of us, upon the adoption of long-range weapons of precision, and continues to develop, under our eyes, with the development of rapidity in firing. And yet, with the exception of Zola"s la Debacle, la Debacle, no considerable attempt has been made to portray war under its new conditions. no considerable attempt has been made to portray war under its new conditions.
Mr. Crane, for his distinction, has. .h.i.t on a new device, or at least on one which has never been used before with such consistency and effect. In order to show the features of modern war, he takes a subject-a youth with a peculiar temperament, capable of exaltation and yet morbidly sensitive. Then he traces the successive impressions made on such a temperament, from minute to minute, during two days of heavy fighting. He stages the drama of war, so to speak, within the mind of one man, and then admits you as to a theatre. You may, if you please, object that his youth is unlike most other young men who serve in the ranks, and that the same events would have impressed the average man differently; but you are convinced that this man"s soul is truly drawn, and that the impressions made in it are faithfully rendered. The youth"s temperament is merely the medium which the artist has chosen: that it is exceptionally plastic makes but for the deeper incision of his work. It follows from Mr. Crane"s method that he creates by his art even such a first-hand report of war as we seek in vain among the journals and letters of soldiers. But the book is not written in the form of an autobiography: the author narrates. He is therefore at liberty to give scenery and action, down to the slightest gestures and outward signs of inward elation or suffering, and he does this with the vigour and terseness of a master. Had he put his descriptions of scenery and his atmospheric effects, or his reports of overheard conversations, into the mouth of his youth, their very excellence would have belied all likelihood. Yet in all his descriptions and all his reports he confines himself only to such things as that youth heard and saw, and, of these, only to such as influenced his emotions. By this compromise he combines the strength and truth of a monodrama with the directness and colour of the best narrative prose.
-from New Review New Review (January 1896) (January 1896) NEW YORK TIMES.
If there were in existence any books of a similar character, one could start confidently by saying that [The Red Badge of Courage] was the best of its kind. But it has no fellows. It is a book outside of all cla.s.sification. So unlike anything else is it, that the temptation rises to deny that it is a book at all. When one searches for comparisons, they can only be found by culling out selected portions from the trunks of masterpieces, and considering these detached fragments one by one, with reference to the "Red Badge of Courage," which is itself a fragment, and yet is complete. Thus one lifts the best battle pictures from Tolstoi"s great "War and Peace," from Balzac"s "Chouans," from Hugo"s "Les Miserables," and the forest flight in " "93," from Prosper Merimee"s a.s.sault of the redoubt, from Zola"s "La Debacle" and "Attack of the Mill," (it is strange enough that equivalents in the literature of our own language do not suggest themselves,) and studies them side by side with this tremendously effective battle painting by the unknown youngster. Positively they are cold and ineffectual beside it. The praise may sound exaggerated, but really it is inadequate. These renowned battle descriptions of the big men are made to seem all wrong. The "Red Badge of Courage" impels the feeling that the actual truth about a battle has never been guessed before.
-January 26, 1896 THE NATION.
Mr. Stephen Crane is said never to have seen a battle; but his first book, "The Red Badge of Courage," is made up of the account of one. The success of the story, however, is due, not merely to what Mr. Crane knows of battle-fields, but to what he knows of the human heart. He describes the adventures of a private-a raw recruit-in one of those long engagements, so common in our civil war, and indeed in all modern wars, in which the field of battle is too extensive for those in one part of it to know what is going on elsewhere, and where often a regiment remains in ignorance for some time whether it is victorious or defeated, where the nature of the country prevents hand-to-hand fighting, and a coup d"oeil of the whole scene is out of the question. In such an action Mr. Crane"s hero plays an active part. It is what goes on in his mind that we hear of, and his experience is in part so exactly what old soldiers tell young soldiers that Mr. Crane might easily have got it at second-hand. The hero is at first mortally afraid that he is going to be afraid, he then does his duty well enough, but later is seized with a panic and runs away, only to come out a hero again in the end. His panic and flight are managed well; the accidental wound which he luckily gets in running, helps him to a reputation for bravery before he has earned it. When he fights in the end, he fights like a devil, he saves the regimental flag, he is insane with the pa.s.sion of the battle; he is baptized into the brotherhood of those who have been to h.e.l.l and returned alive. The book is undeniably clever; its vice is over-emphasis. Mr. Crane has not learnt the secret that carnage itself is eloquent, and does not need epithets to make it so. What is a "crimson roar"? Do soldiers hear crimson roars, or do they hear simply roars? If this way of getting expression out of language is allowable, why not extend it to the other senses, and have not only crimson sounds, but purple smells, prehensile views, adhesive music? Color in language is just now a fashionable affectation; Mr. Crane"s originality does not lie in falling into it.
July 2, 1896 H. G. WELLS.
It was a new thing, in a new school. When one looked for sources, one thought at once of Tolstoy; but, though it was clear that Tolstoy had exerted a powerful influence upon the conception, if not the actual writing, of [The Red Badge of Courage], [The Red Badge of Courage], there still remained something entirely original and novel. To a certain extent, of course, that was the new man as an individual; but, to at least an equal extent, it was the new man as a typical young American, free at last, as no generation of Americans have been free before, of any regard for English criticism, comment, or tradition, and applying to literary work the conception and theories of the cosmopolitan studio with a quite American directness and vigor. there still remained something entirely original and novel. To a certain extent, of course, that was the new man as an individual; but, to at least an equal extent, it was the new man as a typical young American, free at last, as no generation of Americans have been free before, of any regard for English criticism, comment, or tradition, and applying to literary work the conception and theories of the cosmopolitan studio with a quite American directness and vigor.
-from The North American Review North American Review (August 1900) (August 1900) STEPHEN CRANE.
Tolstoy ranks as the supreme living writer of our time to me. But I confess that the conclusions of some of his novels, and the lectures he sticks in, leave me feeling that he regards his genius as the means to an end. I happen to be a preacher"s son, but that heredity does not preclude-in me-a liking for sermons unmixed with other material. No, that sentence doesn"t mean anything, does it? I mean that I like my art straight.
-from Thomas Beer"s "Introduction" to Volume 7 of The Work of Stephen Crane, edited by Wilson Follett (1925-1926) edited by Wilson Follett (1925-1926) THOMAS BEER.
He came to believe that The Red Badge of Courage The Red Badge of Courage was too long, and as this distaste for length-mblematically-included his own life he is to remain a halved portrait, an artist of amazing talent and of developing scope who died too soon for our curiosity.... A man so brilliantly impatient of shams had surely something amusing to say, and the legitimate pity of the case is that he did not live to say more. was too long, and as this distaste for length-mblematically-included his own life he is to remain a halved portrait, an artist of amazing talent and of developing scope who died too soon for our curiosity.... A man so brilliantly impatient of shams had surely something amusing to say, and the legitimate pity of the case is that he did not live to say more.
-from his "Introduction" to Volume 7 of The Work of Stephen Crane, edited byWilson Follett (1925-1926) WILLA CATHER.
Perhaps it was because Stephen Crane had read so little, was so slightly acquainted with the masterpieces of fiction, that he felt no responsibility to be accurate or painstaking in accounting for things and people. He is rather the best of our writers in what is called "description" because he is the least describing.
-from her "Introduction" to Volume 9 of The Work of Stephen Crane JOSEPH CONRAD.
Recalling now those earnestly fantastic discussions it occurs to me that Crane and I must have been unconsciously penetrated by a prophetic sense of the technique and of the very spirit of film-plays of which even the name was unknown then to the world.
-from Conrad"s "Introduction" to Stephen Crane: A Study in American Letters (192 7), by Thomas Beer (192 7), by Thomas Beer Questions 1. What is it about Crane"s style that distressed the critic who wrote in The Nation? Are there elements of literature today that are "allowable" and others that are not? 1. What is it about Crane"s style that distressed the critic who wrote in The Nation? Are there elements of literature today that are "allowable" and others that are not?2. Wyndham and Wells, both reading from the British perspective, found in Crane a new literature. What about Crane"s style is original? What are we to make of Wells"s comments about the "American," and how does The Red Badge of Courage The Red Badge of Courage forge and define this concept? forge and define this concept?3. Crane"s style is often described as "impressionistic." What does this term express to you? It might be interesting to find a pa.s.sage that seems "impressionistic" and a.n.a.lyze the concrete uses of words that give it its special flavor.4. Crane thought of himself as a "realist." How do you understand this form? Fidelity to material actuality? A lot of descriptions? An absence of idealization or fantasy? A tough-mindedness about human emotions and motives? If Crane is realistic, in what sense?5. Do you take the tall soldier to be an oddball or a representative type? Which of his characteristics make him either a special case or an every-man, subspecies America.n.u.s? America.n.u.s?
FOR FURTHER READING.
Biographies and Related Materials The Correspondence of Stephen Crane. Edited by Stanley Wertheim. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Edited by Stanley Wertheim. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Davis, Linda H. Badge of Courage: The Life of Stephen Crane. Badge of Courage: The Life of Stephen Crane. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.
Stallman, R. W Stephen Crane: A Biography. Stephen Crane: A Biography. New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1968. New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1968.
Wertheim, Stanley, and Paul M. Sorrentino. The Crane Log:A Doc.u.mentary Life of Stephen Crane, The Crane Log:A Doc.u.mentary Life of Stephen Crane, 1871-1900. New York: G. K. Hall, 1994. 1871-1900. New York: G. K. Hall, 1994.
Historical Resources Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, Inc., 1956. Since The Century magazine series was first collected in book form in 1887, this primary historical resource for Crane has been reprinted several times by several publishers. The 1956 edition is available in many American libraries. The essays involving the Battle of Chancellorsville are in volume 3. 4 vols. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, Inc., 1956. Since The Century magazine series was first collected in book form in 1887, this primary historical resource for Crane has been reprinted several times by several publishers. The 1956 edition is available in many American libraries. The essays involving the Battle of Chancellorsville are in volume 3.
Sears, Stephen W Chancellorsville. Chancellorsville. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996. A well-researched and balanced modern account of the battle. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996. A well-researched and balanced modern account of the battle.
Selected Critical Studies Bergon, Frank. Stephen Crane"s Artistry. Stephen Crane"s Artistry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1975. New York: Columbia University Press, 1975.
Berryman, John. Stephen Crane. Stephen Crane. New York: Sloane, 1950. New York: Sloane, 1950.
Cady, Edwin H. Stephen Crane. Stephen Crane. Revised edition. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980. Revised edition. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980.
Campbell, Donna M. Resisting Regionalism: Gender and Naturalism in American Resisting Regionalism: Gender and Naturalism in American Fiction, 1885-1915. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997. Fiction, 1885-1915. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997.
Dooley, Patrick K. The Pluralistic Philosophy of Stephen Crane. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.
LaFrance, Marston. A Reading of Stephen Crane. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.
Nagel, James. Stephen Crane and Literary Impressionism. Stephen Crane and Literary Impressionism. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1980. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1980.
Pizer, Donald, ed. Critical Essays on Stephen Crane"s Critical Essays on Stephen Crane"s The Red Badge of Courage. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1990. The Red Badge of Courage. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1990.
Solomon, Eric. Stephen Crane: From Parody to Realism. Stephen Crane: From Parody to Realism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966.
a Savage race from Asia that marauded throughout Europe during the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. Also, an offensive term for people of Germanic ancestry, significant here because Germans comprised a good proportion of the troops in the Eleventh Corps.
b Military slang used by veterans to taunt new recruits about their inexperience.
c Short for Johnny Reb, slang for a Confederate soldier. The equivalent for a Union soldier was Billy Yank.
d Dialect alteration of kit and caboodle, and caboodle, meaning "the whole thing." meaning "the whole thing."
e Mild oath probably originating in mythology-from Gemini, the twins. Several linguists, however, believe that the expression derives from a German phrase invoking Jesus.
f Located in Saratoga County in upstate New York.
g Mild oath invoking the devil.
h Colloquialism for Jesus" Rod, invoking Christ"s power and authority as shepherd. Some traditions believe that Christ possessed Moses" rod. Several religious denominations would consider this phrase used in such a context as blasphemous.
i The term skedaddle, meaning "desertion under fire," became popular early during the Civil War.
j Informal term for a man, derived from either curse or customer.
k Person in a hopeless situation; several linguists believe this meaning derives from the word"s use as a racist term for an African American.
l The Orange Turnpike, an east-west road between Orange Court House and Fredericksburg.
m In Irish and Scottish folklore, a female spirit whose wailing under a window portends a death in the family.
n Colloquialism for the mild oath Lord!
o Variation of the dialect term h.e.l.lwhoop; means "at great speed."
p Lively folk dance, usually performed alone and so named because it was originally accompanied by a musical instrument called a hornpipe; once popular among British sailors.
q A particularly derisive denunciation.
r Popular slang for "exceedingly fine," from the nineteenth-century aesthetic movement that affected extravagant elegance in dress and deportment.
s American colloquialism for "a bunch."
t Cowardly lout or rogue.
u Shaft is slang for harsh and unfair usage; two paragraphs down, Crane playfully returns to the word"s original meaning with the phrase is slang for harsh and unfair usage; two paragraphs down, Crane playfully returns to the word"s original meaning with the phrase arrow of scorn. arrow of scorn.
v Disparaging slang for "coa.r.s.e, nagging, scolding women."
w Neglected boy who lives primarily on city streets; Crane developed this metaphor from his experience in the Bowery district in New York City.
x Popular interjection to indicate surprise.
y A toddy is a drink usually made from brandy, water, sugar, and spices.
z From the phrase "I"ll be hanged"; suggests confoundedness.
aa In the manual of arms, a position in which a soldier holds his rifle vertically next to his right leg with the b.u.t.t resting on the ground.
ab Here meaning a stupid person; from a word once used to describe an ill-bred, ugly horse.
ac Roughnecks, street brawlers.
ad Purposeless chatter.
ae An English proverb that dates back to the Renaissance.
af Literally. a teamster; here, a disparaging term used by military officers to describe troops not proven under fire. The term calls attention to noncombat activity, ironic here because several of Fleming"s New York peers had likely been teamsters prior to their military service.
ag "Good-by John" was a popular American phrase indicating a hopeless situation.
ah In chapter XVIII, an officer "spoke of the regiment as if he referred to a broom" that must clean the woods of Confederates. Crane perhaps developed this simile from the adage "a new broom sweeps clean."
ai Meadow, which here does not provide cover from musket fire.
aj Military slang for infantrymen is mud crushers, which envisions men trudging through mud toward the front. Mud diggers thus is a disparaging term for infantrymen who refuse to move.
ak beggarly.
al Similar to jim-dandy, jimhickey means exceptional; since "hick" suggests an unsophisticated person, however, Fleming"s comrade suggests that fineness originates in one"s ordinariness rather than in affected airs.
am Sergeant who attends the company captain and performs messenger duties.
an American colloquialism for "I swear."
ao A superior, excellent, or large example; a phrase popular in Crane"s time was to go ahead like a whale, which meant "to forge ahead."
ap The upper edge of the dinghy"s side.
aq Slang for "a hurried escape"; variation of the more popular phrase a dose shave; here refers to abandoning the sinking Commodore.
ar Popular phrase that means "occurring regardless of human vohtion."
as Cotton fabric with a fleecy nap on one side only; here Crane refers to the storm-disheveled plumage of the bird.
at Rope fastened to the bow of a boat, usually for tying it up to a dock or another vessel.
au The oarsman"s seat on the dinghy.
av City on the Seine River southwest of Paris.
aw Florida beach located about 4 miles south-southwest of the Mosquito Inlet Lighthouse.
ax Cheese is slang here for the essential quality of an object; just as cheese is cultivated from milk, so is the sacred essence of being (here manifested in the arousal of each man"s survival instinct) distilled from ordinary life.
ay Ninny means "simpleton" or "fool"; linguists believe it was derived from innocent. Crane here stresses how the universe does not follow a well-considered plan.
az Large, horse-drawn covered wagon used for public transportation.
ba variant of the Irish exclamation and lament wirra, wirra, which roughly translates as "O Mary." which roughly translates as "O Mary."
bb Vulgar for terrier, an ethnic slur directed at Irishmen.
bc Variation of a slang phrase meaning "stop that."