In his short story “The Open Boat” author Stephen Crane poses—and then proceeds to answer—a question of fundamental significance to the continued survival of the human species. The question that Crane’s story poses to the reader is one asking them...

Stephen Crane's interpretations of life are spawned from his own opinions of the world. These opinions correspond with naturalistic train of thought. He makes use of an observation technique to show the natural law of the universe: One can either...

In each of the two short stories, "To Build a Fire," by Jack London, and "A Mystery of Heroism," by Stephen Crane, the author portrays life's realism through the thoughts, actions, and descriptions of a central character. Both characters undergo...

For centuries, philosophers have debated just how much truth can be found in the concept of free will. As humans, we tend to favor a viewpoint that grants us more control, that is, that we are capable of determining our future with our actions....

With the second theater scene of Stephen Crane’s novella Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, the plot of the selected play is used ironically to provide insight to the hopes and concerns of its audience. Because the theater is a form of escape for...

Novelist Ray Bradbury once said, “I used to take my short stories to girls' homes and read them to them. Can you imagine the reaction reading a short story to a girl instead of pawing her?” (“Ray Bradbury Quotes”). While speaking from a comical...

The dialogue in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is an attempt by Stephen Crane to preserve the language of tenement dwellers in lower Manhattan in the late 1800s. During this time, many citizens were poor. Children were left to fend for themselves....

A child can feel lost and alone without motherly love. Marian Anderson’s “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” and Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane each detail isolation in light of separation from a mother. Anderson’s timbre,...

In American literature and culture throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the signs of wealth and poverty are often indicated by an individual’s appearance. The belief that one’s exterior reflects their class is demonstrative of the...

Stephen Crane, one of America's foremost writers of the realist genre, frequently used a sonic aesthetic to breathe life into his descriptions of poor urban environments. In both Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Experiment in Misery, Crane...

In the novel, Maggie by Stephen Crane, Maggie suffers a horrific death. Throughout the novel the reader sees the terrible conditions that each character must live in, as well as the experiences that they go through. Their lives are filled with...

The Catcher in the Rye and The Red Badge of Courage detail the gradual maturation of two immature boys into self-reliant young men. The steady speed at which Salingerís and Craneís language streams enables the reader to see the independent events...

Stephen Crane's pieces are written with the intent to establish individualism as an unfavorable quality. He establishes that group goals are more important than that of the individual and creates groups to which each character should conform....

After reading Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, one is faced with the question regarding whether young Henry Fleming is indeed, a hero, or if he, in fact, has changed through the course of the novel. I believe that the young soldier has...

The world of Stephen Crane's fiction is a cruel, lonely place. Man's environment shows no sympathy or concern for man; in the midst of a battle in The Red Badge of Courage "Nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden process in the midst of so...

Stephen Crane, in "The Red Badge of Courage", makes numerous references to flags, references that are all fraught with meaning. Flags themselves hold a great deal of symbolic value. They began as a way to distinguish tribes in battle, but came to...

Henry Fleming, after receiving his red badge of couragea blow to the headtakes over the role of color-bearer during a vicious combat. As he sees his comrade sink to the ground in pain, he fights with his friend Wilson for the esteemed position of...

In chapter six of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, protagonist Henry Fleming flees from battle in a panic. When, in the next chapter, he hears that the remaining members of his regiment defeated the enemy without his assistance, he...

In Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, protagonist Lily Bart is on a quest for happiness. In her case, happiness embodied in the image of marriage to a rich and indulgent husband and, subsequently, the ability to behave as a proper woman of...

Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage follows the enlistment of the protagonist Henry and his struggle to mature from a youthful vanity that drives most of his actions through the novel to a final acceptance of the uncaring reality of war and...

Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, one of the most famous war novels of the 19th century, can also be analyzed outside of the trope of military literature and along a psychological route. Crane’s novel follows the journey of young soldier...

The em-dash, often formed in print by two hyphens lacking separation, is a piece of punctuation “stronger than a comma, less formal than a colon, and more relaxed than parentheses” (Strunk and White 9). Traditionally a dash indicates an abrupt...

‘The Red Badge of Courage’ by Stephen Crane is not merely a war novel. It is an account of a young man’s struggle to understand both himself and the world, as well as deal with the burdens that come with it. Henry, the young soldier and...

One of the more impactful means by which the experience of war is recreated for a civilian audience is through the illustration of the human body, with lived experience and relevant literature illustrating war as an entity so powerful that it...