Red Badge of Courage

What id the author's viewpoint and purpose, what are the author's main point, what kind of evidence does the author use to prove his or her points. Is the evidence convincing?

Steven Crane's purpose in writing the Red Badge of Courage was to highlight the brutality of war, and the horrors war inflicts upon all of its participants. However, perhaps because of his choice of the Civil War to illustrate this theme, the major idea that the novel expresses is that although war is terrible, it is far worse to run away from the challenges a person must face in life. Crane's argument is convincing because he uses a just war as his setting, rather than an unjust war, where staying and fighting seems a more noble option.

Crane tells his tale from a third-person limited point-of-view. His book takes the perspective of a single Union soldier, rather than takes an entirely subjective first-person perspective or an entirely omniscient perspective. This allows Crane to show the thinking processes of the naive young volunteer. The central concern of Henry Fleming is proving his bravery. At first, he flees from battle, convinced that the charge he embarks upon is doomed to failure. He justifies his action by rationalizing that a single man leaving makes little difference to the whole mission.

However, Fleming learns that in fact the army won a victory, and begins to feel guilty. Worse yet, when he returns the men assume that he was wounded in battle, even though he only has an accidental injury. Fleming longs to be wounded, for a red badge of his courage. Eventually, Fleming becomes a capable soldier and leads the charge of his regiment. He proves worthy of the superficial wound that the other men previously assumed was due to his bravery, even though he was only wounded when he was running away. This is a symbol of how cowardice and fleeing one's fears is the real wound, not the wounds someone gets facing their fears. Thus, although the violence of the novel makes it seem like an anti-war text, it does not endorse refusing to fight when facing a worthy challenge.