could someone give me a good summary on the red badge of courage, and yes i did read the book and i have trouble understanding, and help would be good thanks!!
A kid, full of beans, runs off to join the army to annoy his mum, but on the eve of battle suddenly becomes paranoid that he'll do something to disgrace himself through cowardice. (That's actually as far as I got in the book so far.) I am given to understand, though, that in his own mind at least he does disgrace himself and endeavours for the rest of the book to redeem his manliness. In that sense the story arc, or at least the character arc, is not dissimilar to The Four Feathers. The point of the story is to counterpoint the myths of warrior gung-ho and daring-do, and to analyse the inner anxieties and motivations of the individual, volunteer-citizen soldier, and by extension the expectations of society. The novel also presents the battlefield with an unprecedented realism; that is to say, Crane presents the actual fog of war that authors have always set out to clear.
I can't help you. I read that book a few years ago, and I hated it so hard.
