The Red Badge of Courage / Stephen Crane
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AG RED BADGE FM 8/9/06 8:46 AM Page i The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane THE EMC MASTERPIECE SERIES Access Editions SERIES EDITOR Laurie Skiba EMC/Paradigm Publishing St. Paul, Minnesota AG RED BADGE FM 8/9/06 8:46 AM Page ii Staff Credits: for EMC/Paradigm Publishing, St. Paul, Minnesota Laurie Skiba Paul Spencer Editor Art and Photo Researcher Lori Coleman Chris Nelson Associate Editor Editorial Assistant Brenda Owens Kristin Melendez Associate Editor Copy Editor Jennifer Anderson Sara Hyry Assistant Editor Contributing Writer Gia Garbinsky Christina Kolb Assistant Editor Contributing Writer for SYP Design & Production, Wenham, Massachusetts Sara Day Charles Bent Partner Partner All photos courtesy of Library of Congress. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Crane, Stephen, 1871–1900. The red badge of courage / Stephen Crane. p. cm. -- (The EMC masterpiece series access editions) Summary: During his service in the Civil War a young Union soldier matures to manhood and finds peace of mind as he comes to grips with his conflicting emotions about war. ISBN 0-8219-1981-4 1. Chancellorsville (Va.), Battle of, 1863 Juvenile fiction. [1. Chancellorsville (Va.), Battle of, 1863 Fiction. 2. United States--History-- Civil War, 1861–1865 Fiction.] I. Title. II. Series. PZ7.C852Re 199b [Fic]--dc21 99-36549 CIP ISBN 0-8219-1981-4 Copyright © 2000 by EMC Corporation All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be adapted, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, elec- tronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without permis- sion from the publisher. Published by EMC/Paradigm Publishing 875 Montreal Way St. Paul, Minnesota 55102 800-328-1452 www.emcp.com E-mail: [email protected] Printed in the United States of America. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 xxx 05 04 03 02 01 00 AG RED BADGE FM 8/9/06 8:46 AM Page iii Table of Contents The Life and Works of Stephen Crane. v Time Line of Stephen Crane’s Life . viii The Historical Context of The Red Badge of Courage. x Understanding the Text . xiv Characters in The Red Badge of Courage . xvi Echoes . xviii Illustrations . xx Chapter 1 . 1 Chapter 2 . 12 Chapter 3 . 20 Chapter 4 . 31 Chapter 5 . 35 Chapter 6 . 42 Chapter 7 . 49 Chapter 8 . 55 Chapter 9 . 60 Chapter 10 . 65 Chapter 11 . 71 Chapter 12 . 77 Chapter 13 . 83 Chapter 14 . 89 Chapter 15 . 94 Chapter 16 . 99 Chapter 17 . 105 Chapter 18 . 110 Chapter 19 . 115 Chapter 20 . 121 Chapter 21 . 129 Chapter 22 . 135 Chapter 23 . 140 Chapter 24 . 145 AG RED BADGE FM 8/9/06 8:46 AM Page iv Plot Analysis of The Red Badge of Courage. 152 Creative Writing Activities . 156 Critical Writing Activities . 158 Projects . 160 Glossary . 163 Handbook of Literary Terms . 181 iv THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE AG RED BADGE FM 8/9/06 8:46 AM Page v THE LIFE AND WORKS OF Stephen Crane Stephen Crane (1871–1900) lived only twenty-eight years. In that time, he earned a reputation as a great American nov- elist, poet, and short-story writer; was a forerunner of literary movements that flourished long after his death; and became a respected war reporter. Crane met the most noted literary figures of his day; he lived through a shipwreck and near- death at sea; and he became one of America’s most notorious literary rebels, even angering a future president. Despite so much action packed into so few years, Crane did have a regret—that he never became a major league baseball player. Stephen Crane While we can never be sure what the loss to baseball was, Crane’s chosen profession as a writer helped to spark a revo- lutionary change in American literature. Stephen Crane was born in 1871, in Newark, New Jersey, the youngest of fourteen children. He had six brothers and two sisters who survived into early adulthood. Stephen Crane’s father was a Methodist minister who was already over fifty when Crane was born. His mother was also a devout Methodist who wrote for Methodist journals and papers, often in support of the temperance movement (a movement that advocated a sober lifestyle and sought to ban the sale of alcohol). The Crane family moved frequently to different towns in New Jersey and New York, as Stephen’s father, the Reverend Crane, moved from church to church. The Reverend Crane died in 1880, when Stephen was only eight years old. Stephen’s mother took on more writing pro- jects, but the family was poor and continued to move fre- quently, most likely to escape debt. Stephen had a love of adventure as a child that sometimes drew him close to danger. When he was very young, he almost drowned when he tried to join older boys swimming in a river. Stephen also gained more first-hand experiences with death. In a town in New Jersey, he witnessed a woman being stabbed to death by her romantic partner. One of Stephen’s sisters, who encouraged his love of reading, died when he was thirteen. A few years later, one of his brothers died in a gruesome railroad accident. Despite these experiences, Stephen maintained his high spirits and was determined to live life as he saw fit. Stephen attended a number of boarding schools, one of them a mili- tary school. Although bright, he was never an excellent stu- dent. He spent his time reading books other than those assigned and playing baseball. He was a gifted catcher and THE LIFE AND WORKS OF STEPHEN CRANE v AG RED BADGE FM 8/9/06 8:46 AM Page vi shortstop who could catch the ball barehanded. In 1890, he entered Lafayette College to study engineering, but quickly dropped out. The next year, he entered Syracuse University, where he followed his passion for reading and writing. He also continued to play baseball and dreamed of joining the major leagues despite his poor health. He excelled in English, but as he enjoyed reading everything but what was assigned for his classes, the rest of his marks were poor. The summer after his first year at Syracuse University, Stephen decided not to go back and to try writing full time. Crane began writing as a reporter in New York City. Soon after he launched his career as a reporter his mother died. Crane was fascinated by the life in the Bowery, one of the City’s notorious slums. There he drew inspiration for his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, a grim, Naturalistic novel about an impoverished woman in a desperate situation. Crane’s novel was too shocking for most publishers. Impoverished himself, Crane borrowed money against the small inheritance his mother had left him to publish the novel himself. Although the novel won the respect of a few American writers, it earned little critical praise and sold poorly. Discouraged, but not willing to give up on his talent, Crane began reading widely about the Civil War. By 1894, he had finished The Red Badge of Courage, his best known novel about a soldier’s experiences in the Union Army during the Civil War. He sold the novel for ninety dollars to be pub- lished serially (a few chapters at a time) in a number of news- papers. The Red Badge of Courage was published in its entirety in a book in 1895. It immediately became a best-seller and won Crane great critical acclaim. Most people, however, were stunned to learn that the young man who had written such a compelling account of war had never seen one. The same year he published his first book of poetry, The Black Riders. Crane’s fame startled him, in part because people began to criticize the way he lived. In 1896, he defended a chorus girl who was arrested for immoral behavior. Because Crane testi- fied against police officers, he became a somewhat scan- dalous figure. The police commissioner of the City, Theodore Roosevelt, who would later become president of the United States, was among Crane’s critics. Crane escaped his growing notoriety in America and sat- isfied his fascination with war by becoming an overseas war correspondent, reporting on the revolution in Cuba. On his way to Cuba from Florida, he met and fell in love with Cora Taylor, a woman with a questionable reputation who had vi THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE AG RED BADGE FM 8/9/06 8:46 AM Page vii been married twice before (which was considered to be scan- dalous in Crane’s day). On December 31, 1896, Crane set off for Cuba in the steamship Commodore. Two days later the ship began to sink. Crane, the captain, and ten other sailors were lowered into the sea in a small lifeboat. After a day in the lifeboat, they sighted land but the sea was too treacher- ous for them to make their way to safety. The boat capsized, and Crane and the other men struggled to stay alive in the cold, stormy sea. After someone on land spotted them, the crew was rescued. On land, Crane read his own obituary. Crane later immortalized his experiences at sea in the short story, “The Open Boat.” On his return, Stephen Crane and Cora Taylor left for Greece to report on the Greco-Turkish War. They married, and after the war moved to England, where Crane was befriended by fellow-American writer Henry James and British writers H. G. Wells and Joseph Conrad. In 1898, the Spanish-American war erupted, and Stephen and Cora returned to the United States.