Musing on Much for School!

Death is… an eventuality. Yes, but does it mean something different in War than it does during other times? Yes, it does, becuase in war the circumstances of the death can mean the difference between being just another casualty and being honored as a hero. Stephan Crane describes death, in what I would call a disturbing manner…

The tall soldier opened his lips and spoke. He made a gesture. “Leave me be–don’t tech me–leave me be—-” There was another silence while he waited. Suddenly, his form stiffened and straightened. Then it was shaken by a prolonged ague. He stared into space. To the two watchers there was a curious and profound dignity in the firm lines of his awful face… … His arms beat wildly about hsi head in expression of implike enthusiasm. His tall figure stretched itself to its full height. There was a slight rending sound. Then it began to swing forward… …in the manner of a falling tree. (55)

Crane’s technique is in the detail, he described what it was like for someone to die violently in war. When someone has a wound they often have several spasms before they die, much like the tall soldier, Jim. It makes me sick, the way it is described, but that’s what Crane wants. Crane wants to ensure that the reader knows exactly what its like to watch someone die in a war. The youth is utterly horrified by the event, he cannot get over what he just saw and is on the lookout for some of the same signs coming from the tattered soldier that accompanied him. The tall soldier is awestruck, but only because he keeps repeating, “I never seen a man do like that before.” (56)

I’ve seen dead bodies at funerals and such, but I can’t imagine what it would be like to actually watch someone die like that. Would it change my thoughts about the way things work? I don’t know, I’ll have to be in that situation first, but this little descrption by Crane doesn’t make me in any hurry to watch somone die…

Comrades is a word that is often misrepresented by colloquial definitions.  Were the men that served with Henry truly comrades? Well, to be truthful, a lot of them were not really his friends, (or at least not revealed that way) and they tended not to share common interests. The tall one, for instance was very vocal about his opions of which Henry did not agree at all. They all agreed that the higher-ups were being foolish, but they really didn’t define anything else that was similar. In fact Henry often alienated himself from the group, making them far from comrades!

In the novella The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane explores a lot of territory involving the subjects that dominate most human conceptions of “War” in his story. In chapters 5-8, we follow Henry as he wins his first fight, and feels like a hero… but as he finds wars are not fought in fights, but in battles.

In the traditional norm, a hero is someone who braves every conflict, who never runs, and fights for what he or she believes in with the full force of their being. Henry of course, falls short of this. While his “red rage” and “acute exasperation of a pestered animal” (33) certainly carries him through the first wave of attack, it falls short when he calms down and the enemy forces attack again.  At this he violates another heroic principle “the stoic” as he beginst to run and rationalize himself with thoughts like “He had done a good part in saving himself who was a little piece of the army.” Such acts would not cross the mind of a traditional hero!

However, courage and heroism are subjective, not objective terms. When a little girl faces up to her mean stepfather who in a mature males mind is scrawny, then we can still call that courage, becuase to the little girl, even that scrawny man is a tough opponent. If she is protecting her little brother from the stepfather, then we can call that heroism becuase she is defending something else. Courage is being able to stand up to things that you are scared of, and though you are frightened you punch your way through anyway, and heroism is having the courage to save the things that you hold dear, particularly human life.

I think that the fact that I have read a few Piers Anthony books and delved deep into the question of Heroism after 9/11 have really influenced my thoughts on the matter. Becuase Piers Anthony always includes in his works (though they be pulpish fiction) the idea that a courageous man is one that stands up to fear though he is afraid and a hero is one who works to end the problems that face his ideals.  Of course, 9/11 is a terrible event that produced many heros. The firefighters who helped try to calm the blaze that happened after the explosion and even the people on the plane themselves.

Crane is trying to show us that being a hero is something that is subjective by using Henry’s thoughts to show us that he thinks of himself as a practical man for fleeing the battle. The ball that is placed on the words is that he has his animal instincts that rule his fighting, but he has human rationale’s for getting out of there!