The Red Badge and Social Violence: Crane's Myth of His America

Abstract

The Red Badge of Courage is Crane's response to the underlying violence, turmoil and savagery of post-Civil War America. Crane, however, has still not received enough credit for conveying through the war world of his novel the inner meaning of the social, political, racial and economic realities he transformed into the myth of war in The Red Badge. By "the myth of war" I mean the timeless, larger-than-life, suggestive quality that emerges from Crane's dominant imagery of war and fog, from his disorienting irony and failure to provide clear connectives, from his sense of anarchic break- down and uncertainty, and from the savage violence, shifting shapes, and diminished, groping protagonist that together give The Red Badge its dis- tinguishing energy. This configuration constitutes a "myth" in the sense that it embodies a dominant imagery and set of emotionally charged attitudes that express the meaning of life not only for the author but also for a significant number of others in his culture.1