The Red Badge Of Courage

Written by Stephen Crane

Narrated by Geoffrey Giuliano and The Ark

There comes a time in the course of battle when a participant casts his fate to the gods of war, and carries on without question, the task at hand. Living, dying, right or wrong, can be contemplated later. The spirit of the bayonet takes over and carries the youth through the crucible of battle to emerge a short time later several ages older.Stephen Crane's classic novel gives us a glimpse into the mind of a young soldier as he passes through the experience he will never be able to forget, and possibly awaken him from his slumber in a sweat and panic for years to come.

Stephen Crane was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism. He is recognized by modern critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation.

A daring and inspirational audiobook adventure from a master of English literature

• Language: English
• Publisher: Icon Audio Arts
• Release date: Feb 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887677668

Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1871. He died in Germany on June 5, 1900.

Reviews for The Red Badge Of Courage

[keegopatrick · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a good book but a little hard to read. I noticed that the author used the same words a lot such as crimson while describing things but I really enjoyed the book. My mom suggested this book and told me that she had read it when she was in high school as a mandatory read so I figured I should check it out since it is a classic of sorts. It was a short book and a fast read but I do think that I have a better understanding of what warfare was like on the front lines of the Civil War. I think that I will be reading more books from the civil war era.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The only reason I listened to the audio version of The Red Badge of Courage is that it's a classic of American literature. I wasn't impressed. I don't know if it's because I am not a fan of American literature in general, or if it's because the book has been overrated. Throughout the book, Crane refers to his protagonist, Henry, as “the youth”. Was he afraid that readers were going to forget how young some of these soldiers were if he didn't continually remind us of it? The almost exclusive focus on Henry's youth at the expense of other aspects of his character worked to distance me from Henry. I would have abandoned the book early on if I hadn't had a personal reason for wanting to finish it. It's the book my father taught when he did his student teaching. I don't know if he chose the book or if it was assigned. I wish my father was still here to talk with me about this book. If anyone could help me get anything positive out of it, he could have.

[brannonsg · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The U.S. is at war, this time a Civil War. The battle is right here, and it compels many young men to join the military to defend their homeland and their core beliefs. Henry Fleming is one such man. The Red Badge of Courage follows this young man, his heart filled with patriotism and passion. Though his mother is certain he is making a mistake, he knows he must have his part in the destruction of the Confederates. But what happens when a passion-filled young man meets battlefield reality? This book does a remarkable job of capturing the feelings, sounds, sensations, reactions and common dialect of the 1860's in a fast paced book. Highly recommended.

[arielfl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was another classic I read to help out my twelve year old daughter for school. Somehow I missed it in my youth which is just as well because I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it then anyway.The story is about Henry Fleming, a spoiled young man who enlists in the Union Army against his mothers advice. Henry doesn't know what to expect in war. For a long time his unit is left idling, waiting to engage the enemy. When they are finally called to battle it is not anything like Henry expected. Although he tries to fight he decides it would be suicide to stay and runs. He is so convinced that they will all be needlessly slaughtered that he is determined to alert the field commander that he is making a mistake. By the time he reaches the officer he finds out that the men in his unit who have stayed to fight have indeed won the battle. Henry feels ashamed of himself when he sees the men with their bloody injuries, their "red badges of courage." Not so ashamed though that he does not accept the bedroll and care offered to him by a fellow soldier who mistakenly thinks that Henry was injured in battle but in reality his head wound was obtained while running away. Henry examines himself and his actions and determines to be more courageous the next time he meets the enemy. In the ensuing battle Henry grabs up the flag and leads his unit after it is dropped by the injured flag bearer. By taking charge Henry metaphorically makes the transition from a boy to a man.Although the author never served in a regiment his portrayal of war is very realistic. As I read I could clearly picture the bullets whizzing past the heads of the men as they fought. Another searing image that will stay with me is the dead soldier in the woods. At the time this was written, the war was being portrayed as being glorious by people such as Frederick Douglas. Crane's depiction offered a much more realistic view of the horrors of war. Stephen Crane used literary devices such as simile, personification, alliteration, and imagery to paint a vivid picture of what it would have been like to be on the battlefield. The text needs to be read slowly in order to get the full picture of the words. My twelve year old daughter was bored to tears by this book and I am sure that many children who are assigned this novel fail to appreciate it. Part of the problem may be that the protagonist is a very unlikeable person. Even when he is having his moment of glory, he is doing so by wresting the flag away from another soldier who is also reaching for it. Henry's characters flaws aside, I still found the book fascinating. I have always enjoyed learning about the Civil War and having visited several battlefields I could clearly picture the events as they were unfolding in the book. I don't think a generation raised on Harry Potter and Hunger Games will find a lot to enjoy in this novel but I did like the soldiers perspective of war that this book gave.

[akblanchard_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A young man moves from cowardice to courage, doubt to self-confidence, and youth to manhood in this classic Civil War novel.Between the conversations in dialect and the chaotic battle scenes, I found this novel hard to follow but rewarding. I particularly liked Crane's use of color imagery. Recommended for Civil War buffs.

[fuzzi_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book has been considered a classic, but I never considered reading it until this year: I am trying to read many of those classics that I neglected during my childhood.The story is told through the perspective of 'the youth', aka 'Henry'. He is a raw recruit in the Union Army, during the American Civil War, actual year is not mentioned. Henry dreams of glory until his first real battle. He survives, but has conflicting emotions, which continue to haunt him until the next battle.I did have some difficulty with this book, especially concentrating during occasional musings by Henry. However, I did get a better sense of what the young soldiers must have experienced.I'm glad I finally read it, but am unsure of a reread in the future.

[corinneblackmer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Henry Fleming finds that he, like so many others, becomes a coward when first faced with the gruesome rigors of the battlefield. He redeems himself--in reckless and hate-filled fashion--while Crane depicts to a point of historically accurate perfection, the confusions that led to Union defeat in the Battle of Chancellorsville.

[allen1993 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

About a young union soldier who ran from battle during the civil war. This book taught me the importance of forgiving yourself and others.

[cecrow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I feel like I haven't much to say about this one, which makes me sorry for generations of students who studied it and had to squeeze this novel dry of whatever juice they could find. Stephen Crane spends all of it inside of Henry Fleming's head, a young man on the Union side of the American Civil War as he is thrust through multiple phases: from the excitement of enlistment to the boredom of encampment, to the clinical self-study of preparation and finally to the fearful experience of battle - fearful enough that he mindlessly runs away. For years the title has been a curiosity to me, only to discover now that its meaning was obvious all along: "He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage." It surprises me that the author Stephen Crane had no war experience himself. Some content might be the product of imagination, but I have to assume he talked to some of the war's veterans and read their accounts to uncover this many visceral details about the experience of the front-line. Crane is predominantly focused on the initial terror of war rather than its horror, but with a dash of that too. At the halfway point he turns away from confronting the uselessness of war, as the first half seemed to be steering toward. Henry's focusing on that is regarded as a weakness best forgotten. It is subsumed by a portrayal of the strengthening element of personal glory to be won through heroism, fear replaced by anger and pride as the key to a soldier's survival and maturation. Whether war makes any kind of sense is left as an exercise for subsequent authors to tackle.

[brose72 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Story of valor and fear experienced by civil war combatants. How the personal fortunes and perceptions of the participants change so quickly during the tumultuous conflicts into which the characters are thrown.

[aiufjcf · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book didn't really grab me. It was just ok.

[emathison-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was required reading when I was a freshman in highschool. However, I enjoyed reading it because I felt like I was watching a movie in my head.

I love how the author describes the sun as an orange wafer in the sky, at the end of the book. Maybe it was red, I forget.

[snash_44 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

[The Red Badge of Courage] was an introspective examination of himself by a soldier facing action in a realistically portrayed battle of the Civil War. His thoughts range from glory to shame to a worn pride.

[srboone · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not as exciting or as emotionally relevant as I thought it would be, but immensely enjoyable.

[neverstopreading-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Anthony Heald does a fantastic job in his audio reading of this classic novel.

[crewman_number_6 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Could this guy be any more annoying? He runs away, he comes back, runs away, comes back. Make up your mind. I know this is supposed to be a classic, but there really are better "classics" out there.

[auntmarge64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This short novel recounts a young farm boy's first battle as a Union soldier and his internal struggles with cowardice. Scholars believe the action is meant to take place at Chancellorsville.Henry Fleming enlists against his mother's wishes. Like many naive youngsters, he thinks battle will be glorious, but instead his group is kept in camp for a lengthy period, bored and uninformed of what is planned for them. When they are finally called to action, he sees little purpose to what they do against a seemingly invincible enemy, and he runs away from the battle. Later in the day he makes his way back to try to find a way to feel good about himself. I found the book generally unsatisfying. Henry's internal monologue taken as a whole is thought-provoking, but it's difficult to relate to his reasoning and actions. This may be because I have no experiences by which to judge his, but I think it goes deeper. Henry's not particularly likable (and apparently wasn't to Crane, either). There's something in his manner and speech (and in those of his fellow soldiers), that made me think of the three escaped prisoners in the movie "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" In other words, bumbling and not-too-bright fools. However, many people thought it was so spot-on that he must have been at war himself, so the book obviously resonated with many at the time it was published.

[aine.fin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another one from the Guardian's top 100 books list. Hard to read in that it was depicting such traumatic events and also the language was so vividly descriptive it became a bit dense for me. I was relieved it was short! Modernist text that depicts the confusion and horror of the battlefield.

[stefany_6 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Red Badge of Courage is a descriptive narration of one youth's first battle experience during the Civil War. This book deals with a dark time in American History and the writer treats it as such. The detail is stark, bleak and Crane doesn't sugar coat anything. I'm not disappointed that I finally picked this up and read it. It is a very short novel and doesn't take much of a time commitment to read. I did however find it dragging in parts and it took me a while to get into it. Henry, the youth, of the novel is a fairly simple individual who is shown the ugly face of war and his reactions to his first experiences are what the book is about. All in all, this is a good book, but nowhere near great. I'm not a big fan of Crane's style in his storytelling, however he does paint a vivid picture and the reader gets a clear idea of what it may have been like to be an unwitting youth going into battle for the first time with little training or warning of what to expect.

[lhlogan1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A lot of people seem to dislike this tale, but I enjoyed it. Really set the stage for thinking about the Civil War.

[bryndahlquis · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found it very hard to keep my attention focused on it, and half the time I honestly had no idea what was going on. But, since I really wasn't interested, I never could take the time to go back and find the context.I can kind of see why this book has become such a classic, but I have to say that it's just not for me.

[la2bkk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In keeping with his other works of realism, Crane's seminal book portrays the experiences of a young Federal soldier in the Civil War. There are many positives, including the accurate depiction of warfare from a soldier's viewpoint. There is no fame and glory- war from the private's perspective is little more than din of battle, confusion and fear. I thought Crane's depiction of the soldier's struggle to rationalize the shame felt from fleeing the initial encounter was fascinating. For all its good points, there were times when it seemed the work dragged on. But for that, I would rated this work higher. In any case, a recommended read.

[6boysandme · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Summary: I am sure that I'm just to much of a girl to appreciate the wonder of this book. War, war, war and the suffering of young boys is all around us. I imagine my boys will glory in it, now if I can just get through it again...

[4bonasa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A classic of the anti-war genre. Read in HS.

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Frank Muller does a good job with the narration of this American Civil War classic.

[elosoblanco · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I think that there are some very telling moments in this novel, and I think there are some beautiful metaphors, but there was something about it that just did not draw me in. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something was missing.

[aliceap-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Today's book is a classic that I have wanted to read for quite some time but never got around to...until now. Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage covers the American Civil War from the point of view of a Union soldier. It's the gritty portrayal of life at the front and just what it's like to lay down your life for a cause that you don't fully understand. In fact, our protagonist has almost no clue what it is that he's fighting for or against. He joined up because it was the done thing which seems to be the case for the rest of his regiment as well. There are those that brag about their bravado but when the time comes for the bullets to fly they are the first to turn and run. At first, our soldier is condescending towards these 'cowards' as he sees them but he very quickly sees the futility of their regiment's actions as they seem to be merely feinting and arbitrarily gaining and losing ground. It is a gritty, raw description of battle and defeat which is undercut with confusion and fear. These are children playacting warfare but the injuries and death are very real. Crane's insistence on not holding back lends a realistic, deadening of the senses feel to what it's like on the battlefield when you are surrounded by death and horror at every turn. He was making a commentary on the futility of war and how those who are a part of the 'war machine' are generally lost as to the meaning of why and who they are fighting. I am immensely glad that I finally picked this book up and gave it a read. I encourage ya'll to do the same. It's a slim volume and will take no time at all (though I don't promise you'll want a break every now and again from the bloodshed). 9/10

[stbalbach_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Stephen Crane first published Red Badge in a local Philadelphia magazine when he was 23 years old. It is a short work because Crane found other popular realists like Zola ("Germinal") and Toltstoy to be tiresome, saying of "War and Peace" - "He could have done the whole business in one third the time and made it just as wonderful". He even criticized his own "Red Badge of Courage" as being too long. Crane was a rebel and non-conformist, essentially without any formal education, he disliked anything that was considered popular.Crane was aiming for photographic documentation, but the work is also richly symbolic, with a series of episodic scenes juxtaposed like a French impressionist painting forming contrasts. Thus he is able to capture the ironic and contradictory nature of war, swinging from elation to fear, pride to humbleness, love to anger .. time and geography are lost, what is right becomes wrong and what is wrong becomes right. The book has no real plot, and is morally ambiguous, one leaves it feeling a bit disheveled wondering exactly what happened, but with certain scenes forever etched in your memory. Probably one of the best artistic representations of the experience of combat.

[tjsjohanna_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While I read this in high school I remembered almost nothing. The prose of the novel is beautiful and Crane highlights the ugliness of the war with the nature images that exist in the midst. Henry (or "the youth") is not a very likeable character - he is deluded about a great many things, including his very own character. He successfully faces his fears and develops courage, but it's questionable if he succeeds in facing his self-delusions. The chaos and incomprehensibility of war are so successfully captured in this short novel so that the reader can imagine just what it was like.

[novelbookworm_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Since I didn't remember reading this book as a kid, I thought I'd read it when my daughter had to read it for summer reading. The Red Badge was typical of the classics written in the 1800's. Florid, flowery language, certainly a book of great impact for the time it was written. That said though, as a reader, I mean....as a person who really loves the written word, and wants nothing more than to see kids grow up with that same love, it seems to me to be almost counter intuitive to teach a novel like this to a group of 13 year olds. Its a difficult book to read, archaic language, obscure phraseology, yet with themes that are pertinent today. I guess I feel that its important to appreciate classic literature, but on a very basic level it feels more important to me to foster a love of reading. I'm not sure that a book such as this will encourage kids to read. I don't know that a 13 year old can appreciate this book and will simply write it off as a boring dusty old book that a teacher crammed down his/her throat. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating that Junior High kids should be reading only Teen People, Star, XMen and the like, but I think the books we direct them to should be more engaging.