amongst peer realist writers.
Red Badge deals with the American Civil War and was written by Crane just 30 short years after the actual war. His intent was to present the war from the point of view of a typical ordinary soldier. By many within the literary establishment, it is considered the first true modern war novel.
At times, he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage. (Red Badge of Courage)
Crane uses the institution of the army and the trauma of war to depict a greater mass mentality, one just beginning to take root within his time, replacing rugged individualism with a predatory evocation of the spirit of competition now dominating the American landscape. It is in utilizing this theme that Crane is able to expose the motions of change that are the undercurrent to this new and predatory mass society. It is the impetus of this machine, capitalism and industrialization that create the American success story. Writers wh
...