How Does The Red Badge Of Courage Change

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At the dawn of The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, Henry is an ignorant young man. As he goes through the process of joining the army and going off to war he begins to inflate his ego and tell himself that he is very brave. He only wants to fight for glory and not for what is actually on the line, the survival of the Union. Eventually throughout different battles and hardships during the war Henry begins to realize that this war is bigger than just him. The battles and the experiences that Henry garners, causes him to transform from childish young adolescent into a mature soldier for good. Throughout the story Henry is referred to as the youth by the author. While the other characters call him by his name it is very rare, the author refers to him almost exclusively as the youth. This constant use of the word youth gives the reader the feeling that he is not ready for war and is very immature. Although Henry does start to mature as the story progresses he is still referred to as the youth. In the beginning the referring to Henry as youth makes him out to be a child but the meaning changes near the end of the story. This helps to show how Henry has changed into a real man from all of his experiences …show more content…
He thinks of himself very highly and that he is better than almost everyone around him. He goes from a runaway soldier to the head of the charge in just a matter of days. His experiences in battle begin to humble him so that he eventually sees the error in his ways. He sees that some of the things that he has done were wrong but he is able to put that behind him because he has his whole life ahead of him to make up for that. This change from a self-inflated child to an adult who can admit the error in his ways really shows how much Henry has matured and that that change is here to