Junior Research Presentation
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephan Crane
Outline
June 4, 2012
I. Historical Time Period: 1860’s
A. Politics
1. Presidents- Abraham Lincoln (1861).
a. Republican (1854–1865)
b. National Union (1864–1865)
2. Lincoln led the United States through its greatest constitutional, military, and moral crises the American Civil War.
a. Lincoln preserving the Union, abolishing slavery, strengthening the national government and modernizing the economy. (Kelly)
b. Was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. (Kelly)
c. Lincoln had many nicknames but his memorable ones are Honest Abe and The Great Emancipator. (Kelly)
d. Abraham Lincoln served a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1847 to 1849. His foray into national politics seems to be as unremarkable as it was brief. He was the lone Whig from the state of Illinois, showing party loyalty, but finding few political allies. He used his term in office to speak out against the Mexican-American War and supported Zachary Taylor for president in 1848. (Anderson 14)
e. Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Thomas was a strong and determined pioneer who found a moderate level of prosperity and was well respected in the community. The couple had two other children: Abraham’s older sister Sarah and younger brother Thomas, who died in infancy. Due to a land dispute, the Lincolns were forced to move from Kentucky to Perry County, Indiana in 1817, where the family “squatted” on public land to scrap out a living in a crude shelter, hunting game and farming a small plot. (Anderson 13)
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Lincoln, Abraham, 16 th president of the United States, who steered the Union to victory in the American Civil War and abolished slavery. Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Kentucky, the son of Nancy Hanks and Thomas Lincoln, pioneer farmers. At the age of two he was taken by his parents to nearby Knob Creek and at eight to Spencer County, Indiana. The following year his ...
B. Controversies of Era
1. Social- Though some immigrants had not voted for Lincoln in 1860, like most Northerners, they rallied to support the Union after the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861.
a. Initially, anti-foreigner sentiment waned as immigrants and Americans fought side by side for their common country.
b. Many immigrants seized on the opportunity to prove their loyalty to their new nation during the war. (Kelly)
2. Legal- Slavery was legal in roughly half of the states up until the Civil War. After the war ended, the Constitution was amended three times to end slavery and ban discrimination against blacks, but discrimination and segregation did not end until the significant Supreme Court cases of the 1950s. (Anderson 21)
a. Adopted between 1865 and 1870, the Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution form the legal basis for the protection of civil rights. (Kelly)
b. The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) makes slavery and involuntary service illegal. (Davis)
c. The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) declares that anyone born in the United States is a citizen of both the United States and of the state in which the person resides. (Kelly)
1. The privileges and immunities clause states that no state can be deprive a citizen of the privileges and immunities of citizenship.
2. The due process clause states that no person can be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.
3. The equal protection clause declares that all citizens have the equal protection of the law.
3. Medical- Cocaine was legal (1855), and was not considered harmful in moderate doses. (Anderson 16)
a. Many other drugs, now restricted by law, were also legal then, including opium, which was sold under city permit on the streets of Victoria. (Kelly)
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b. The use of drugs increased after the war because of the effects of the men forcing themselves to forget what they say during the war.
c. Official medical records kept during the civil war indicate that there were no less than 268 suicides in the 51 months between June 1861 and August 1865, or 5.25 suicides per month. It was discovered that the second year of the war produced the most suicides. (Kelly)
C. Economics of Era
1. U.S. government estimated Jan. 1863 that the Civil War was costing $2.5 million daily. A final official estimate in 1879 totaled $6,190,000,000. (Davis)
a. The Confederacy spent perhaps $2,099,808,707. (Kelly)
b. By 1906 another $3.3 billion already had been spent by the U.S. government on Northerners’ pensions and other veterans’ benefits for former Federal soldiers. (Anderson)
c. Southern states and private philanthropy provided benefits to the Confederate veterans. The amount spent on benefits eventually well exceeded the war’s original cost. (McWilliams)
2. Government clerks earned $16 per week; teachers $2 per student per month; and, Union nurses $12 per month. (Kelly)
a. Prices for a modest farmhouse, $2500; for an extravagant country house, $14,000. To rent a city house would cost $500 per year; room and meals in a boarding house went for $35 per month, more if that included use of the parlor.
b. Renting a tenement dwelling would be $5 per month, and cheaper yet is rent for a stable converted to dwelling space, at $15 per year.
D. Life Style of Era
1. Work: over two million immigrants (often in the worst conditions and the lowest paid jobs) brought new influences and contributed to an unprecedented period of prosperity (Davis)
a. many more women participated in the strictly sex-segregated paid workforce and many more of these were married, In 1861 31.7 percent were women and 56.8 percent were married.
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There are all types of information including lesson plans, articles and news. BBC origin is a British Broadcasting Corporation. Established in 1922,London. The founders of BBC are John Reith and George Villers. BBC purpose is to “enrich peopleʼs lives with programs and services that inform, educate and entertain.” The values of the source are that it has benefits of hindsight; this is because they ...
b. the unemployment rate of Americans were up to 4,088,000 people unemployed at the start of the 1970’s(Davis)
2. Leisure: Free time was also spent in card games, reading, pitching horseshoes, or team sports such as the fledgling sport of baseball, a game which rapidly gained favor among northern troops. (Anderson 18)
a. Soldiers also played a form of football that appeared more like a huge brawl than the game we know today, and often resulted in broken noses and fractured limbs.
b. Holidays were celebrated in camp with feasts, foot races, horse racing, music, boxing matches, and other contests. But while on active campaign, the soldiers were limited to writing, cleaning uniforms and equipment, and sleeping. (Kelly)
3. Family: The 1840-60’s was the era that was taking the step forward and away from the structured family to soon regretfully return to a nuclear family.
a. Women started to go to work and try to assist with the civil effort.
b. The widow rate rose from 23% to over 54% in only 4 years. (Davis)
4. Education: Schools were one room houses; all the children of different ages and grades had one teacher. (Kelly)
a. Normally male students, they use a blue back speller, a New England primar and the Bible
b. They wrote on chalk slabs and the teacher also had a chalk board. Children would normally go in the summer and winter months. School would be closed for harvesting and farming season. (Davis)
5. Entertainment/ Newsworthy people & products:
E. Gender Roles
1. Families: Women of this time were required to work long hours, which left less time for the family (Kelly).
a. Rising divorce rate and deaths left an increasing number of women as sole breadwinners and forced more and more of them into poverty.
b. Increasing amount of teens and mothers were homeless or barley able to stay alive on the streets, which forced women to move in to sub housing in the ghetto areas or become squatter on ones land.
2. Education: People from Third World countries came to this country in search of economic betterment or to escape political repression.
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a. Women surpassed men in college enrollment in 1979 (Anderson 14).
b. In 1975 the Indian Self-Determination Act encouraged Indians to take control of their own education and promote their tribal customs
II. Character Life Decisions
A. Henry decides to go to war
1. Henry watches and waits for the news every day about the war, today was special he knew it was his time to go and fight for freedom. As he gets back to the farm he sees his mom he announces to her, “Still winning…Ma, iv enlisted”. She was upset but proud of her son. (Crane 5)
a. Henry wants to go because he wants to become someone he doesn’t realize what he’s getting himself into.
b. As he rides through the town on his way out he notices all the people happy and pleased to see him go, he felt like he was finally important in the world.
2. Seven States voted to leave the union and begin to form a southern confederacy and brother together go to fight for the freedom from the south. (Kelly)
a. This decision lead to the civil war of 1860, just as the 7 states decided to separate as they did this made many Americans and immigrants fought for what they believed in, Henry feels he must fight for his rights cause he doesn’t want to lose the only thing that keeps him human.
b. Henry believes this war will make him into a stronger individual and highly respected.
B. Henry is scared of war, wounding if he will run away!
1. As Henry sits talking with the other men in his infantry he ponders to himself “that as far as war was concerned he knew nothing of himself” (Crane 31).
a. He sat waiting for the orders, scared of whether to run or fight because he thought that is was just going to be simple, in and out kind of deal. He never knew he could be so scared of death.
b. Henry wanted to be free but was locked away from himself struggling with the internal conflict regretting the decision he had made to go to war.
2. “President Lincoln & General Ulysses S. Grant devised a plan of all-out assault in 1864” (Morrison 379).
a. This moment in time is important because this was the plan Henry was waiting for, the more he sat the more he lost himself.
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... to fight like a well-trained soldier. while he has made a real achievement in this battle, Henry ... rather insecure. In the regiments first battle, Henry fights well. His admiration for himself reaches a ... Henry, once they have seen the ravages and truths of war, most become disheartened and disillusioned. Stephen Crane's ... Now, Henry is not fleeing in terror, but in shame. He is trying to run away ...
b. As Henry went into battle he say things he would have never think he would see, just was president Lincoln made a decision Henry was making a decision whether to stay or run for the hills.
III. Motifs of the Novel
A. Brotherhood
1. “… if I once started to run, id run like the devil…”(Crane 12).
a. It shows that if his brothers were to stay and fight he would, but if they were to run he would not stay behind he would be in the front.
b. Its shows how connected he was with the other infantry men, even though he knew he was technically fighting his own brothers on the other side.
2. “His emotions made him feel strange in the presence of the men who talked excitedly of the prospective battle as of a drama they were about to witness” (Crane 67).
a. He felt more connected and scared at the same time, wondering if everyone or no one would be saved.
b. The internal demons within him were starting to destroy the simple free caring young man that entered the war only months ago.
B. Freedom
1. “a lad whose face had been bourne an expression of exalted courage, the majority of he who dares give his life, was at an instead, smitted objects” (Crane 46).
a. The freedom from himself and from the war he could not fight.
b. The scared intuition within himself to continue down a path of no return.
2. “His look was fixed again upon the unknown. He moved with mysterious purpose, and all of the youth’s offers he brushed asides” (Crane 63).
a. Unknowing the future but trying to stand up and fight for what he thinks is right.
b. Its shows the process of having to worry if the future is really what we want it to be on is it the hell we’ve been running from.
IV. Interpretive Question
A. According to Naturalists, humans are weak and ineffectual beings at the mercy of deterministic forces. Analyze how you believe this idea fits with the character of Henry. Does Henry believe he has the opportunity to change the circumstances which surround him during the war? Support your answer with three examples from the text.
1.
I. Author Focus:
a. Crane one of the most innovative writers of his century (Tyle)
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b. Crane began writing at the age of four and had many published works by the age of sixteen (Tyle).
c. Crane had a rebellious childhood, which he spent time trying to become a professional baseball player(Tyle).
i. Henry left for the war and was rebellious like crane in his childhood.
ii. Crane made up the entire events due to critics writing bad reviews on previous works.
d. Crane lived in poverty in New York City (Tyle).
e. Crane neither fought in war nor saw battle but wrote a novel about the war to please the critics.(Tyle)
i. The entire story was made up and henrys experiences never happened.
II. Literary Criticism
a. Agree/ Disagree with Criticisms
i. Criticism: Wyndham was the only one of Crane’s early critics to grasp the significance of narrating the novel from the point of view of Private Henry Fleming.(McWillaims).
