1. Color Symbolism In The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane uses color symbolism throughout his novel to describe details of war. Within the title itself is color symbolism. With a theme of bravery during times of war, the author refers to the color red as blood. Men give up limbs and body parts in battle and receive courage, respect, and honor. This partial loss of oneself is what gives a soldier red badge demonstrative of courage.

2. Naturalism - Humans having no control over their destiny. All is left to fate or destiny. Ex. Outcome of battles as the soldiers go to fight. Realism - Representation of reality to the middle class or common people. Ex. Henry grasp that war is not some fantasy of heroism but that men actually get shot and die. Romanticism - Emphasis on emotion, passion, and the natural world. Ex. The idea that war is some glorious scene where men show bravery. Impressionism - Scenes are not depicted by what really happened but rather the feelings or emotions felt from the actions. Ex. Henry’s thoughts and feelings about fleeing from battle.

3. Stephen Crane was born in Newark, New Jersey, and is the fourteenth child of Methodist minister Jonathon and Mary Crane. Stephen taught himself to read at the age of three and wrote letters to his grandmother. He wrote his first poem at the age of six and his first short story at the age of thirteen. At the age of twenty- two he published his first novel, “Maggie, Girl of the Streets”. The story centers around a beautiful girl who grows up in the slums where her parents are both alcoholics and suffers from an abusive childhood. She becomes homeless and is rejected by her family and turns to prostitution. At twenty-four he wrote “The Red Badge of Courage”. Early Life of Stephen Crane

4. The Gettysburg Address The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln is a speech to honor the men who have given their lives for the purpose of creating a unified nation where all men are treated equally. Repetition and parallel structure with “we” creates a patriotic tone and a mood of coming together and working as one. In The Red Badge of Courage, Henry struggles with a man vs. self conflict in which he is not sure whether or not to run away from battle. He is afraid to die, but then grows to want “a red badge of courage” as a symbol of bravery.

5. The painting reveals the reality of war and the life and death that are closely related to each other. Wounded men are being tended to while the uninjured soldiers fight for their lives and off to the side is a pile of dead men. The flag flying high represents the spirits of the soldiers in their side of the battle.

6. Comparison of Corpse Scenes In The Lord of the Flies, the corpse discovered by the boys is covered with grass, vines, and has other naturalistic features to it. It is as if the body is returning back to the soil of the Earth as the divine law of nature. In The Red Badge of Courage, the dead body is grotesque with an expression of severe agony. Henry knows the man died from one of the tragedies of battle, but the boys do not know how the man of the corpse died.

7. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell is a novel about the Civil War like the Red Badge of Courage. Gone With the Wind takes place in the South with the rich cotton plantations. The plot centers about a man and a woman in love, but the man must go to war as a soldier. All the fertile land full of crops gets destroyed by the end of the Civil War. In The Red Badge of Courage all the fighting takes place in the North and story stays focused on the War and Henry’s thoughts about his first battle. Gone With the Wind

8. This poster tries to rally men’s attention by portraying war against the South as morally the right thing to do. Also shown is a school that only adds to the ethical tactic of pressuring men to do what is right. Depicted in the back corner is a large army of men. This is a rhetorical strategy of pathos using bandwagon to influence men that everyone is joining the army so they should too.

9. The Battle of Fredericksburg was initiated by the Union in an attempt to attack Richmond, the capital of the Confederates. On the Union side, the generals in charge had miscommunications resulting in chaos and was crushed by Southern forces. Confederate snipers hid among buildings while their troops were protected by a stone wall. The Union was forced to retreat which inured the Northern pride.

10. The Emancipation Proclamation The turning point in the Civil War was when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This historical document granted freedom to all slaves including those who lived in the South. Passing this law established which side had won the war, and was the beginning of rebuilding a nation where “all men are created equally”. Lincoln hoped that the Confederate states could be convinced to join with the Union.

11. Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi are all public figures known for fighting for the independence of a race. Lincoln and King fought for the freedom of slaves of African Americans while Gandhi fought for the equal treatment of the Indian race. All of these men fought and accomplished their goals of equal treatment for all men of all races.

12. Point of View The Red Badge of Courage is told in third person omniscient point of view. Although the novel is about the Civil War, the author, Stephen Crane, was never a soldier himself or even was active in battle. Unlike most war novels, the perspective comes from a young soldier who struggles with himself of whether or not to run away from battle. The story shows a fearful side of war unlike the typical heroic side.