Color Symbolism in The Red Badge 0f Color

Virtually every page of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage explodes with color. This is apparent not only from the novels title but from its opening lines as well:

As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors . . . . A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of hostile campfires set in the low brows of distant hills (Crane 5).

Because Crane employs such images so extensively in The Red Badge of Courage, it is not surprising that there has been a great deal of critical comment on Crane's use of color. Moreover, there is little doubt that this color use is highly symbolic. But Crane's particular kind of symbolism may not necessarily fit traditional critical notions.

The conventional approach to interpreting colors in The Red Badge of Courage tends to be very schematic. Black may be seen as suggesting war and evil. Red may be seen as the color of the sacrament. Yellow may be seen as representing cowardice or death. These conclusions are not necessarily the most pertinent ones. Indeed, this sort of analytical approach has come under fire during the last couple of decades. As Edwin H. Cady writes in his critical study, Stephen Crane,

. . . in the end, the trouble with a "symbolic" reading of The Red Badge is that it assumes so

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d view, which holds that a person's destiny is largely dictated by circumstance. In this quote, we sense that Henry is beginning to perceive that his own place in nature is not an exalted one. But whether or not he fully learns this lesson during the course of his adventure is a major question raised by the book. Indeed, the book seems to ask whether Henry can learn at all. Is his role in his own story merely a passive one? Crane seems to hint this through his insistence on describing Henry's thoughts purely through sensory impressions. True, Henry seems to shed his romantic illusions and look forward to an end of war and a peaceful life. But at the same time, he seems incapable of real introspection. Is Henry acting or merely reacting? Is this apparent inner growth something he consciously wills, or is it merely an accident of his sensory experience? To consider these questions, we should look at Henry's experiences after he has run away from battle. He quickly experiences a number of tableaus. For example, in Chapter VII, he comes across this scene: . . . a place where the high, arching boughs made a chapel. He softly pushed the green doors aside and entered. Pine needles were a gentle brown carpet. There wa

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