Though it is obvious that Steven Crane’s novel entitled The Red Badge of Courage is centered on one specific symbolic focal point, it is quite easy for the reader to look deeper into the title in search of another meaningful symbol. After much contemplation I realized that Crane uses color imagery as a symbol for many features within the story. Many specific colors were present more than once and often used for a certain representation of a character or characteristic. The particular noticeable colors were green, which is used to represent youth, red is a symbol of Henry Fleming’s mental visions of battle, and gray is used as a symbol for death and defeat. The colors are subtle representations of emotion, character, and one’s perception of events.
Though there isn’t much discussion with reference to the color green in this novel, when it is talked about in the narration it always deals with adolescence or childish behavior. “As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors” (Crane 368).
Crane slightly gives hints of the relationship between color and characteristic. He shows in this quote that like children, the young soldiers circulate rumor within the regiment. Crane continues in the very same chapter to writes “he was aware that these battalions with their commotions were woven red and startling into the gentle fabric of the softened greens and browns. It looked to be the wrong place for a battlefield” (Crane 377).
The Essay on Importance Of green Color
Green: It is the sign of Praise, eternal life, vigor, prosperity, mercy, restoration, health, healing, new beginning, freshness, God’s holy seed, harvest, sowing and reaping, immortality, fresh oil, new life,joy in hope. Green is the color of nature, fertility, life. Grass green is the most restful color. Green symbolizes self-respect and well being. Green is the color of balance. It also ...
The author expresses the youthfulness of the battalions with the colors brown and green. He also begin to hint on the image of the battle field as the color red.
Red is used most often in Crane’s novel. He writes of “…the red eye-like gleam of hostile campfires set in the low brow of distant hills,” (Crane 368).
The author allows the reader to begin viewing the mindset of Henry and his perception of the campfires representing the enemy. Crane then continues with the metaphor, however altering it a bit. He writes, “…he conceived them to be growing larger, as the orbs of a row of dragons advancing” (Crane 368).
The red of the campfires signifies the eyes of the dragons. The monstrous dragons that Crane is referring to are the apposing army. Any form of connection with the enemy is red in Henry’s mind. Especially when analyzing his attitude towards the war. “…war, the red animal – war, the blood-swollen god” (Crane 378).
This “animal” of war that Henry is referring to rules over and feasts on battles. Henry characterizes the battles as an evil “crimson roar”. Even the screams and the gunfire due to the war are red to him. The red world of war is comparative to the red world of Hell. Nothing is far and nothing good can come from either of the two.
Anger is also shown through the symbolic color red. Earlier in the novel Henry is in what Crane describes as a “red rage” (Crane 382).
This demonstrates the violent passion of this soldier’s desire to fight. After coming to a conclusion that he was extremely foolish, Henry feels hatred towards himself and lets out “an outburst of crimson oaths” (Crane 423).
These oaths could be promises regarding his courage in battle or they could be words spoken in fury. By the end of the book, Henry had “rid himself of the red sickness of battle” (Crane 423).
Red here represents not anger, but fear. Henry finds his courage not through a wound but by overcoming his fear of “the red animal, war” and being able to face death. It was the red sickness that previously kept him from his red badge of courage. Though Henry craved “a wound, a red badge of courage” (Crane 390), he realize that the actual wound isn’t what is most important, it is the lesson which is most valuable.
The Essay on masque of red death
The Masque of Red Death: The Masque of Poe People don't really have that much in common, but they do have one big thing in common, that is death. Death is the one thing that no one can stop. The short story "The Masque of Red Death," by Edger Allen Poe shows how that statement is true. Poe was a man who had had many experiences with a disease that killed many people in his life, in his story "The ...
The text acknowledges that death is in no way courageous. While the blood of injury and battle are red, all imagery of death is a lifeless gray. Crane is as thorough in his connection between death and gray as he was with the red connection. Gray is not only the uniform color of the opposition, but also the color of many omens of death and of each dead or deathly person Fleming encounters. “[Henry] perceived with dim amazement that their uniforms were rather gay in effect, being a light gray” (Crane 414).
Gray quickly loses its gaiety, possibly reflecting Henry’s lack of fear of death. Crane also writes of the “long, gray walls of vapor where lay the battle lines” (Crane 414).
These are the battle lines that will end up killing Jim Conklin, the tall soldier.
Deaths are foreshadowed by a “gray dawn” (Crane 376) and by the “gray mists [that] were slowly shifting before the first efforts of the sun rays…it dressed the skin of the men in corpselike hues and made the tangled limbs appear pulse less and dead” (Crane 402).
Gray is obviously a sign of death, and Crane goes more deeply into it in the description of Jim when the sincerity of his injury starts to show. “[Jim’s] face turned to a semblance of gray paste” (Crane 391).
Crane even puts plainly into the text that the color gray and death are related when he writes “another had the gray seal of death already upon his face”(Crane 389).
Crane emphasizes gray so that it signifies death and even comes to represent death within the text.
Crane’s deliberate use of color symbols and color imagery allow the reader to better interpret the way Henry, as well as the author, feels and thinks. Because Crane uses color deliberately and carefully, each takes on a meaning of its own. Not only do they represent youth, battle, death, and defeat, but they also embody an author’s ability to be creative. This allows the reader to examine meaningful and significant signs and emblems within literature. The authors knowledgeable use of similes and descriptions make the novel that much more interesting to read.
The Term Paper on Gray Levels Image Color Images
5. 2 Images: Information without Words or Numbers Images play a fundamental role in the representation, storage, and transmission of important information throughout our professional and personal lives. In many professions, including publishing, art, film making, architecture, and medicine, it is crucial to be able to represent and manipulate information in image form. Furthermore, with the ...
