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Summary: In Through the Flames...Courage is Born
Review: To me, The Red Badge of Courage is a masterpiece. It portrays the many hardships of war through the eyes of a young man. The young man, Henry Flemings, is wondering exactly what he will do in the heat of the battle. He struggles with himself and the enemy to find out what true courage is. Henry's first battle causes him to turn and run. He feels extreme guilt, as though he let his partners down. He returns to the battle with a newfound sense of courage. He has become a real man and also has learned what it means to have courage. The novel takes place in various battlegrounds and campgrounds. The states in which these settings took place are not exactly told. It was, however, in the 1800's and during the Civil War. Stephen Crane, the author of this great novel, uses flashbacks and symbolism to bring his work to a higher level of excellence. An example is when young Henry recalls his entering the war. He remembers his mom's tone, and the way she disagreed with his choice. Henry Flemings was filled with joy and pride entering the war. This novel depicts war life as it really is. Young Henry realizes that war is a hard life, and learns that courage is something that one digs deep down to find.
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Summary: The premire battlefield in the mind.
Review: Reading other reviews here, I was suprised at how negative many of the reviews are. I can relate to the fact that many of these are students that have been forced to read this book through no fault of their own. But this book is simply of the best physological profiles of a soldier in combat ever written. The fact that it is still read one hundred years after its intial publishing shows how excellent the writing is. The book follows the story of one man and his battles with his own fear in the face of enemy fire. The story is not really clear or defined, it is not meant to be. The story is at its heart about the confusion and fear on the battlefield, and how it tests a soldiers convitions, and personal integrity. The main character refers to most of the other characters in the novel using descptive names such as tall soldier, or the officer. This makes since, the main character is often wadering through a large army, and would not know the names of anyone but a few close compians in his own regiment. This is one of the only novels to ever truly come close to decribing the emotions that drive soldiers of victory or defeat on a battlefield. Like many great novels it is short, but contains more than most books twice its leangth. This book is a must read for anyone at all interested in history.
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Summary: A classic that examines the soul of the warrior
Review: A classic which I first read in the early 'forties and just re-read, this is the tale of a youth who joined the Army to fight on the Union side in the Civil War, or as some call it the War of the Rebellion, since no wars are really "civil." Henry Fleming was a farm youth in New York when, with images of future acts of heroism in his mind, he joined the Army and went off to war with memories of his mother's prayerful tears in his mind. While encamped on a river within sight and sound of enemy pickets and listening to the stories of his peers, he begins to doubt his courage. The story is filled with images of the horror and carnage of war, although written lyrically and sensitively. If there is a lesson, besides the dreadfulness of large numbers of men trying desperately to kill each other, it is that one and the same man can experience depths of cowardice and pinnacles of courage and brave acts, depending upon his surroundings and how they affect him. I loved the story in my 'teens, and I am still greatly impressed by it in my seventies--and I have seen the elephant! Joseph H. Pierre
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Summary: Read, Experience, and Learn
Review: Stephen Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage. It is a novel about the Civil War. In this story, a young boy named Henry Fleming enrolls in the Union Army. This book has interesting qualities throughout the story. With this in mind, let's journey back in time to the Civil War. One of the interesting qualities found in this novel is the excitement that occurs throughout the story. During this time, Henry Fleming's army is involved in many battles. What makes these events exciting is the way Henry and the other soldiers view the battles. When the author creates this point of view, the book becomes very interesting. Another quality that makes this novel interesting is the tremendous details contained in the book. An example of these details is the description of Henry Felming's tent. The author describes that he has piled up cracker boxes to serve as furniture in his small and cramped tent. The author also describes how the fireplace has been built with clay and sticks. The author also describes the way that the land is formed when the army is marching into the next battle. Another interesting quality that this novel has is the imagery that is used to describe the sounds of guns firing during the battles. The author states that the bullet shell was "screaming like a storm banshee as it went over the huddled heads of the soldiers." With this imagery, the reader can understand the way that the soldiers feel in the moment of battle. These interesting qualities make this book a great story. One of the discouraging qualities was the sadness throughout the story. An example of this sadness was the death of Henry's best friend, Jim. Jim was a funny man who could always make even the most black-hearted sea pirate crack a smile. It is also difficult to understand the grammar of the soldiers when they are speaking to each other. It is hard to understand because of the slang terms, and chopped up words that the soldiers speak such as, "They all seem t'think we've got em jest where we want 'em." Also, the vocabulary would be hard to understand if the reader is a young person. Some of the words were brand new to me, and I had to look them up in the dictionary to understand their meaning. Overall, I would recommend reading this novel to experience the Civil War and the conflict of that time.
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Summary: Superbly narrated by Walter Lewis
Review: Superbly narrated by Walter Lewis, this flawlessly produced Naxos AudioBooks edition of Stephen Crane's classic Civil War story, The Red Badge Of Courage, is highly recommended for school and community library audiobook collections. Complete and unabridged with a total running time of 5 hours, 17 minutes, 2 seconds, here is a true American classic, in the form of an action packed story of a young Union soldier discovering the true meaning of war and courage in the realities and horrors of the battlefield.
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Summary: WASTE OF TIME
Review: I did not like the book Red Badge of Courage. There are many reasons why I did not like this book, including lack of plot, confusing, 'jumped' around too much, and others. The Red Badge of Courage had some good parts, but the bad parts clearly out-weighed the good ones. I would not recommend this book to anyone, and I have regrets for reading this book. I found this book very confusing, because it used weird words and the dialogue had an unusual dialect to it. Almost the entire book had strange vocabulary that sometimes didn't make sense. Using metaphors usually gives the reader a better picture of the story, but in the Red Badge of Courage metaphors were overused which made the story difficult to follow. In parts of the story you couldn't tell real life from the metaphors and it would get you very confused. In the dialogue of the story the characters had an unusual dialect that gave you a better picture of the character, but it also made it very hard to understand what the character was and wasn't saying. I also did not like this book because it did not have a plot. The whole story was a list of events in chronological order. The book told no reason for all the events. It only told what happened and how. The book also 'jumped' around a bit. An event would happen and then all of a sudden it would jump to another event without a good transition between them, so sometimes you would get lost and it would take you awhile to finally understand what just happened. When the book was talking about the main character, Henry Fleming, it was sometimes unclear what he was really thinking. It would say he was happy and sad in the same sentence and you wouldn't know how he was feeling. In some parts, where there were intense moments, the book didn't tell if he was scared or what, so you couldn't get a good feel about how the main character felt about a lot of the events. Overall I found The Red Badge of Courage a disappointment and a waste of time. When I picked out the book I thought it was going to be an intense story about a man who was in the Civil War and his thoughts and feelings about what was going on, but instead it just told a confusing list of events. I would not recommend this book to any reader and I would give this book two thumbs down.
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Summary: Fear and War
Review: I am a fan of stories that pertain to war and suspense, but "The Red Badge of Courage" is not a typical war story. Instead, it is an account of a youth whose battlefield is his mind. The approach which Stephen Crane, the author, took surprised me, because I had expected a story in which the main conflict was that the characters fought their physical enemy. Although the book was quite short, the content of the novel is breath-taking. The manner the author uses to describe settings, thoughts of fears going on inside of the youth's head, and battle scenes is fascinating. The story takes place during the Civil War, and Crane gives an excellent view of what soldiers might have been thinking while fighting, awaiting the day when the torture of war would end. I enjoyed this journey of a young man struggling to overcome the greatest of his fears, and I would strongly recommend "The Red Badge of Courage" to anyone who enjoys historical fiction.
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Summary: The Tragedy of War
Review: Stephen Crane brings out the realism of war out in this novel. His descriptive style of writing causes the reader to understand the inner struggle within Henry and his fear of death. From the beginning of the story, I was drawn in and wanted to find out what Henry would do next. The plot slows down towards the middle of the story but catches your attention again in the conclusion. At times the battle drones on and left me wondering what had happened. This story is quite simple, but through Crane's ability to depict the battle scenes and the emotions of the soldiers, it becomes very interesting. I think there could have been a more intricate plot with more fighting and fewer of the unnecessary facts on Henry's past and his moral struggle. I enjoy war stories and see this as a true classic. Although the story was boring at times, it was well written and concluded with an extraordinary ending. The Red Badge of Courage is a powerful story, and I recommend it to all.
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Summary: Anyone could enjoy this book!
Review: When I was first assigned to read this book I thought it would be pretty boring, but I sure was wrong! The dialect is pretty confusing but you can usually figure out what is going on. The author Stephen Crane loads this book with tons of imagery and metaphors. The plot was very well placed and thriling, same for the rising and falling climax. If me an 8th grader enjoyed this book I think anyone can!
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Summary: worst book ever!!
Review: This book is so hard to read with it's civil war dialogue and the confusion between war and march. That's all the book is war and march. It took me 3 months just to finish this book for school. It is the most borrignist book ever. I can usually read a book like this in a week!
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