The Red Badge of Courage and Other Stories (Penguin Classics)

Stephen Crane (1871-1900) lived a short life but managed to write the classic of Civil War combat in his 1895
masterpiece "The Red Badge of Courage."
The story shows us the sights, sounds, smells and horror of the battle through the eyes of Henry Fleming. Henry is a farm lad from New York who has left behind a mother who laments his leaving for the army. On the first day of battle the boy runs away but he later redeems himself with heroism under fire. Irony reigns as he is hit on the head by a fleeing soldier! The wound from that blow is his red badge of courage! His best friend in the regiment Jim Conklin is killed by a horrific wound. Henry survives the battle. The short novel shows us the cruelty of war. Soldiers are merely pawns while the heavens look on with indifference to the plight of suffering humanity. Crane believed in social darwinism; the world is a harsh place where only the strong and lucky survive. Crane was the son of a New Jersey Methodist minister but his universe is godless.
This masterpiece of American literature was praised by Ernest Hemingway and filmed by John Huston with war hero Audie Murphy in the role of Henry Fleming. It is an essential of war fiction and a brutal look at warfare.
Other stories are included in this Penguin Edition:
1. The Veteran-this short story records the death of the aged Henry Fleming. He is living on a farm and dies in an attempt to save his ponies when his barn burns to the ground. The story says the battle Henry was involved in during the Civil War was Chancellorsville.
2. The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky tells of a lawman who has returned to a Western town with a wife. Gunman Scratchy Wilson refuses to fight lawman Potter as the story concludes.
3. The Blue Hotel revolves around a cheating at cards incident in a Western town in Nebraska.
4. A Self Made Man is a parody of a Horatio Alger Story.
5. The Open Boat is a tale of survival. A captain, cook, oiler and journalist are castaways from a sinking boat off the Florida coast. They must work together to survive against the backdrop of uncaring and indifferent nature.

I will direct my review to "Red Badge", for the first two stories the gifted young writer wasted his prose on the pathetic lives of a couple suburban families; they were not very interesting, nor enriching.

Though in "Red Badge", Crane brought out uniquely beautiful and detailed prose with the characters written in the dialect of the day. He put more into this rather short story than a book ten times its size, though the momentum slowed the last quarter. The story is about a young soldier searching for courage, meaning and justification while fighting in a single battle during the Civil War. He was out to prove himself after running from his first skirmish. After receiving his wound (red badge of courage) he began to writhe in guilt in the way he received it. As time past he became cocky, and he fooled himself and others into believing a different battle tale.

Crane's style can add to your writing skills, though be wary, his "lostness" does radiate in his words.

Lord bless
Scott