After reading The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, you are faced with the question of whether young Henry Fleming is really a hero or if, in fact, he has changed throughout the course of the novel. I think the young soldier has definitely changed by the end of the novel. He has a newfound sense of security and confidence. He is able to study his actions, his successes, and his failures by the end of the novel, and see them with a little more clarity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayHowever, the fact that Fleming has changed as a character does not guarantee him the high stature of a hero. By the end of the novel, it is abundantly clear to the reader that the protagonist of our novel has achieved a cowardly victory. At no point in the war did he fight the enemy, but, rather, he was in a constant battle with his fear. Fleming did what you would expect a man to do: he approached the situation he found himself in in an entirely human way. At the end of the novel, he realizes that in war he is not in complete control of his actions, but, rather, is nothing more than a mere pawn acting in accordance with the laws of nature. Even if I don't consider Fleming a hero is the traditional sense of the term, in Crane's novel, a novel in which he manages to debunk the war of heroism, Fleming is, in fact, perhaps, one of the "ordinary" heroes who live among us . As we see at the end of the novel, Fleming has truly earned his "red badge of courage" not because he fought a Greek battle of heroic proportions, but simply because he fought a battle and has that experience to look back on. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Considering the dark themes of this novel, I would be willing to consider The Red Badge of Courage as part of the development of the naturalist movement in literature as well as the already existing realist tradition. In my opinion, Crane incorporates elements of both genres into his novel. Although he portrayed Henry Fleming as a character with no agency in life, a character who constantly felt "trapped", at the end of the novel, as the sun returns to its place in the sky and its rays illuminate the battlefield, clearly, c 'It's a sense of optimism. There is a sense that, although man has no free will and is given little or no choice in life, he has succeeded in doing what he was "pushed" into and has gained experience in doing so...