The Red Badge of Courage
-
- €2.49
Publisher Description
One of the most famous war novels ever written, Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage takes place during the American Civil War and follows Henry Fleming, a young private in the Union Army, as he fights for his country and eventually flees from the battlefield. Ashamed of deserting his men, Henry wishes he were wounded in battle so he would receive a red badge of courage, rationalizing that this would in some way counteract his fleeing. In the next battle against the Confederacy, Henry opts to act as the standard-bearer, the soldier that holds the army's flag (an easy target).
This book was created from a scan of the original artifact, and as such the text of the book is not selectable or searchable.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This 1895 tale of young soldier Henry Fleming's initial experiences in combat during the Civil War still startles. Artist Vansant captures Fleming's uncertainty and fear quite well, sometimes through effectively understated facial expressions. Yet this adaptation oversimplifies Crane's portrayal of Fleming, ignoring or de-emphasizing the character's other failings: his egotism, his talent for self-justification and the "wild battle madness" underlying much of his later heroism. In Crane's book, Fleming is haunted by his desertion of the dying "tattered man"; in Vansant's version, Fleming forgets him. Though Crane's book is a landmark in realism, the author's symbolic writing turned Fleming's battlefield into a mythic realm. Vansant's conventionally realistic artwork, on the other hand, is more prosaic than Crane's brilliantly descriptive captions. This adaptation faithfully introduces the plot, characters and primary themes of Red Badge to readers unfamiliar with the original book without penetrating the full depths of Crane's masterwork.
