Reflection- "The Red Badge of Courage" by Stephen Crane

 For this reflection, we had to read "The Red Badge of Courage" by Stephen Crane.  The passage in our book was very short, which may be a little difficult to summarize in the amount of words required for these reflection blogs, but like I always say: when the going gets tough, the tough gets typing!  Anyway, the story starts out by comparing the man of interest to a carpenter.  "He was at task.  He was like a carpenter who has made many boxes, making still another box..." (Glencoe Literature).  I think the author made this comparison to give the reader the visual of the man working hard.  He is obviously doing something repetitive, and something that he is used to doing because he is doing it quickly.  The man is not thinking about doing his work though, and his mind drifts off every once in awhile to "jolted dreams" (Glencoe Literature).  His dreams seem a little muddled because he is so involved in the war effort.  Judging by the time period and the war effort the author is talking about, this must have taken place during the Civil War.  Plus, this small passage also talks about rifles, which if I am not mistaken were the types of guns they used in the Civil War.  Anyway, the man in the story is starting to get full of rage, and is described as "a well-meaning cow worried by dogs" (Glencoe Literature).  I think the man is worried because he is putting his entire being into the war effort and is getting nothing out of it.  Maybe, which is most likely, he is forced to be in the war effort and has no say.  This would be easier to compare to the ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.  Both men did not like the situations they were in concerning the government, and stood up for what they believed in through their writings.  The man in the passage seems like he is building enough rage against what he is doing to do the same, or at least something similar.


Wilhelm, Jeffrey D., Douglas Fisher, Beverly Ann. Chin, and Jacqueline Jones. Royster. Glencoe Literature. New York: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.