Blog #10

In The Badge of Red Courage, a soldier Henry Fleming is a recent recruit on the Union side (Crane). In this story, Henry is a part of a regiment that does not face too many battles, but when a battle finally comes around, Henry becomes a coward and flees before the fight (Crane). As he was wandering around the forest, he begins to feel guilty for fleeing his regiment and he decides to return (Crane). While he is returning, he stumbles upon a "tattered man" and it freaked him out so he left the man in the forest to die (Crane). Soon after he finds another man who is badly wounded but he decides to try and help him (Crane). Unfortunately, his efforts were not good enough because his friend dies. I think this story is very relate able to Henry David Thoreau's writings because in one of his stories he too runs away. Although Thoreau and Henry run away for different reasons, I think its still a similarity because they both ran away. In Thoreau's story, the main character runs away from society and in The Badge of Red Courage, Henry runs away from the battle because he was scared to lose his life. Another way in which this story is similar to Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson is that all three of these people are strongly against slavery. In this story we know that Henry Fleming is against slavery because it says that he is in a regiment on the Union side, which is the side that was trying to end slavery. I think that this story is one of the stories that I could easily relate to both Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson because it is something that each of them have discussed their opinions on in their previous stories. I actually liked this story because it was kind of easy to read and its topic was not completely boring. The only thing I disliked about this story was its length because it was extremely long.

Crane, Stephen. "Untitled Document." The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. Web. 24 Feb. 2012.