An Analysis Of Contrasted Symbols In The Red Badge Of Courage

Stephen Crane (1871-1900), is a famous novelist and poet of the late 19th century in America. He was considered to be one of the audacious innovation writers who accelerated the contemporary American novel style coming into being. He made great contributions to the development of American literature during his short life. Although he was never taken part in wars, he became renowned in 1895 due to the publishing of The Red Badge of Courage when he was only 23 year old. The novel took American Civil War as the background under which the author's description of colors, animals, the weather and other objects had profound symbolic meanings.Symbol is one of the often applied writing styles in The Red Badge of Courage. The main feature of the symbol is that the author gives the common words new meanings through the special and unexpected arrangement and combination. As the symbol pursue neither the pure clearness nor the obscureness on purpose, it goes in for half bright and half dark, or the combination which give people a kind of complicated and confusing artistic effect.Specifically speaking, symbol in The Red Badge of Courage is a topic discussed hotly in the literature criticism field. In my paper, I will discuss the contrasted symbols in the novel.This thesis targeting at The Red Badge of Courage, explains the psychological changes of the protagonist Henry Fleming during the war based on the analysis of the contrasted symbols used by Stephen Crane in this novel. It was the truly and naturally psychological changes showed up by Fleming not the war itself that the novel concerned. This thesis consists of five parts.The first part is a brief introduction to Stephen Crane and The Red Badge of Courage, the literary reviews and symbol theory.The second part shows the psychological changes of Fleming from infantility to maturity based on the analysis of the contrasted color symbols---red and black and gray. The inexperienced Henry grows up from illusion to fear, from fear to bravery, and from ignorance to maturity step by step in the war. The third part states the huge transformation of Fleming from cowardice to bravery. Domestic animals and poultry stands for cowardice and wild animals stand for ferociousness. Henry completed the transformation from the coward to the hero who became the real hero after experiencing running away from the battlefield at the beginning of the war.The fourth part focuses on the contrasted symbols of the smoke, the fog, mist and rain. It points out the progress of Fleming from the initial confusion to the postwar awakening, and the essence of the cruelty of war.The fifth part is the conclusion. The Red Badge of Courage is different from the traditional types of literature describing the war. The heroic image Crane figured is also different from the heroic images in other works. The protagonist Henry Fleming experienced illusion, terror, escape, shame, confidence and bravery. Crane's The Red Badge of Courage is a true pioneering masterpiece in American literature.