Seeking The Meanings Of Existence

Stephen Crane (1871—1900) is one of the most important writers in American literary transition in the late nineteenth century. The Red Badge of Courage, won immediate success, has been regarded as a classical Civil War novel. Since its publication, the novel has received much acclaim from famous writers such as Howells, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, and H. G. Wells.Many critics and researchers in home and aboard have studied The Red Badge of Courage. Most of them analyze the naturalism, impressionism and symbolism of the novel. Some study the structural and technical complexity, and some researchers explore the process of the protagonist's psychological growth. Some explores the images. But few combine American social background at that time with a detailed analysis. As an important American writer in transition, the contents and thoughts that Crane's works reflect are manifold. Henry Fleming, the protagonist of The Red Badge of Courage is a na?ve and untried young man. Throughout the novel he always remains as"the youth"in the narrative, so Henry is not just a person but Everyman.This paper attempts to apply the theory of Sartre's existentialism, combined with social background of the 19th century, to analyze Crane's reflection on man's existence in The Red Badge of Courage. This paper first briefly introduces Crane and The Red Badge of Courage, relevant evaluation and researches on this novel, as well as the focus of the present study, and then introduces the social background of existentialism and some key view points of Sartre. In the main part, the paper analyzes the chaos of war and the confused consciousness of Henry; the alienation between man and nature, man and God, which presents the absurdity of the world. The relationship between Henry and his comrades goes from alienation to integration. When he is in a state of alienation, others are his hell. While he integrates into the collective, sharing weal and woe with them, others help Henry grow. Henry, driven by imagined heroic dream, enlists in haste, however, when the fighting is imminent, he shrinks and scares and flees. Henry cannot find the connection between the ideal dream and reality. He has to resort to bad faith to comfort himself. In the"chapel-like"wood, Henry encounters with death. Witnessing the horrible dying process of his friend, Henry understands that death is inescapable. He determines to return to the fighting place and bear responsibility together with his comrades to remove his shame. Henry's later performance lets him understand that only when the individual is placed into the collective, can he better exert his power.Through analysis, we can see that though Crane lived in the late 19th century, what his novel reflects about man's plight and man's positive choice in dilemma is not confined to his own time: his thinking on life and the world is in advance. Hopefully, this study can provide a different perspective for a more comprehensive understanding of Crane and The Red Badge of Courage.