Summary Of The Red Badge Of Courage By Stephen Crane

According to Nina Baym, author* of the Norton Anthology, “Stephen Crane was born on May 1st, 1871” (Baym 943). Born the last of fourteen children, Crane was the son of a religious Methodist father and an activist mother (943). Similar to the main character in The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the Civil War (1895), Henry Fleming, Crane was born in New York. At a young age, Crane would interview veterans at Port Jervis, New York. He would learn about psychological realism from the veterans and listen to what it was truly like to fight in a battle. Crane developed a passionate interest in war and “other forms of physical and psychic violence” (Baym 944). While growing up Crane attended a prep-military academy where he would go on to learn