Red Badge Of Courage

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in the Civil War. Crane remarks on this later in the narrative: "He was aware that these battalions with their commotions were woven red and startling into the gentle fabric of the softened greens and browns. It looked to be a wrong place for a battlefield" (69). Green is an image of the natural world and of the regiment's fresh youth, while red, in the previous quote, is clearly an image of battle. At the start, however, Crane uses red to describe distant campfires: ". . . one could see across the red, eyelike gleam of the hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of the distant hills" (43). Obviously, the fires are red. But Fleming characterizes the blazes as the enemy's glowing eyes. He continues this metaphor in the next chapter: "From across the river the deep red eyes were still peering" (58). Crane then transforms this metaphor into a conceit used throughout the text: "Staring once at the red eyes across the river, he conceived then to be growing larger, as the orbs of a row ...

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use of red or crimson literally colors their intention for the reader. Earlier in the text, Fleming is in a "red rage . . . He wished to rush forward and strangle with his fingers. He craved a power that would enable him to make a world-sweeping gesture and brush all back. His impotency appeared to him, and made his rage into that of a driven beast" (85). This "red rage" demonstrates the violent passion of this soldier's desire to fight. Thus far we have three elements of battle: flags, gunfire and anger. These things comprise the "red monster of war." I have, however, left out the most graphic and obvious thing that connects red to battle: the red of the blood every soldier stands ...

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