The Red Badge of Courage was one of the first works of "realism" in American literature. However, Stephen Crane’s realism was, even at that time when realism was in its infancy, different from the realism that had come before it. In The Red Badge of Courage, the author is specific enough to give the reader a vivid portrayal of places, people and events, yet general enough not to lock the characters into one fictional image, general enough not to lock the setting into one time and place. The result is a story with an "any-man, any-place" feel. Although the book is narrated in third person, Crane only allows the reader to see what he/she really would be able to see if the reader were the main character of the book. The characters, though detailed in their personalities, do not seem to be anyone in particular; any reader could substitute a person he/she knows who has a similar personality. Many characters in the story seem remarkably human, yet they are only vague figures. The lead character differs notably in no way from any of his peers, or more importantly, from any of us; his thoughts are thoroughly followed, yet at no time is he so detailed that he cannot be us. The location, though in the Civil War, is never precisely given. The battles are filled with sometimes extremely detailed description, but presented in a confusing, clouded manner. At no time does an aspect of the book become "larger than life." It is through these methods that Crane creates a story that seems inevitably as if it could be about us.

One would not think this would be true of the story, based on the opening paragraph: "The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors" (Crane 11). From this it might seem the book is going to be an epic, seen from God’s eye view. However, perhaps Crane meant this to be the equivalent of a wide establishment shot, before zooming in on the story. For,with the exception the very last line of the story in which Crane "zooms out" for the ending, this is the only time that the reader gets such a wide view.

In the very first line of the next paragraph, Crane introduces one of the methods the book uses to carry reader into the story. The introduction of the "certain tall soldier" ( 11) is the first sign of this "general" concept in the book, and the first sign of it being used in the secondary characters, which is an important piece of the feeling that Crane creates. For as the story progresses, although some of the more prominent characters do develop names, the reader gets to know them far more by their "adjective name." There is the tall soldier, the loud soldier, the blatant soldier, the spectral soldier, who is actually the tall soldier, at a time when the main character does not recognize him, and the tattered soldier, among many others who never even gain a permanent adjective. By so naming the comrades of the main character, Crane takes the first step toward making sure they never become too concrete and particular in the mind of the reader. Rather, it leaves room for the reader to shape certain aspects of the men, making it more possible for the reader to see him or herself in the middle of it all. Similarly, beyond simple explanations such as tall or fat, Crane never reveals much in terms of physical descriptions of individual men.

This isn’t to say that Crane doesn’t give his characters personalities. On the contrary, each one has a rather distinctive one. The tall soldier is friendly and helpful. The loud soldier is what his name suggests, loud, and somewhat of a tough guy. But Crane does not leave many of the soldiers so simplistic, as is evidenced by the change in personality of the loud soldier: "Of a sudden he [the youth] felt a heavy and sad hand laid upon his shoulder…he turned and beheld the loud soldier. ‘It’s my first and last battle, old boy,’ said the latter with intense gloom. He was quite pale and his girlish lip was trembling" (34). What is important to note is that although the author gives the characters distinctive personalities, they are not unusual personalities. What person does not know of an individual who is tough on the outside but quite the opposite in reality? Finally, Crane puts the final touches on making the characters seem familiar by likening them to things most anyone of the author’s time, or for the most part ours, would recognize. "The Captain to the company had been pacing excitedly to and fro in the rear. He coaxed in schoolmistress fashion, as to a congregation of boys with primers. His talk was an endless repetition. "Reserve your fire, boys – don’t shoot till I tell you – save your fire – wait till they get up close – don’t be damned fools’ " (41).

Some of the personalities could be considered cliché by today’s standards, but perhaps what ends up making some attributes, in this case personalities, cliché is that many real people have them, and thus they are not original.

Perhaps one of the most important aspects in creating this feeling is the main character himself. Alfred Kazin certainly agrees when he writes, "its soldier hero [Henry Fleming] might have been any American boy suddenly removed from the farm to fight in a war of whose issues he knew little and in which his predominating emotion was one of consummate perplexity and boredom" (135). For him, Crane uses many of the same methods that he does for the other soldiers. For example, a good physical description of him is impossible to find, thus resulting in the assumption by the reader that he is average. More importantly, however, is the common "reference name" that the author gives to his character: "The youth." Anyone who can see him- or herself as a youth, or an average person, can be the main character.

Beyond the looks and name of the youth is the fact that his actions are singularly unremarkable. He is obviously not an exceptionally heroic person, as the reader finds him running in battle and abandoning friends several times in the novel, but he is not even exceptional in his cowardice. It is important to note that he is not the first one to run in his regiment; at least several other men leave before him. And when he comes back it is revealed by a corporal of the regiment that "they keep turnin’ up every ten minutes or so! We thought we’d lost forty-two men by straight count, but if they keep on a-comin’ this way, we’ll git the comp’ny back by mornin’ yit" (80), thus showing that the youth's actions were even "the norm." Perhaps he was not even any more cowardly than many of the men in his regiment. Joseph Conrad states it eloquently when he notes: "some critics have estimated him [the youth] a morbid case. I cannot agree to that. The abnormal cases are the extremes; of those who crumple up at the first sight of danger, and of those of whom their fellows say ‘he doesn’t know what fear is’…But the lot of the mass of mankind is to know fear, the decent fear of disgrace. Of such is the Young Soldier" (133). Similarly, when he is wounded, it is not in heroic fashion, but by a fellow Union soldier who is running from the lines. While this is quite ironic, and perhaps could be viewed as "irregular," thus making the character seem so, it is important to note that the man that hit him was just like he had been earlier; he was running from the lines. Yet, at the same time, when Fleming was hit by his "friend," he was moving back toward the line like all those who hadn’t run. The main character is not an extreme, but the middle ground.

It is also important to note that "the youth" in this story is not really a man of evil or good, as is true of almost all Crane’s characters. Both sides rule him at different points. For example, he abandons a wounded soldier mid-way through the story out of personal fear; but later in the story feels profoundly sad for this same man. Even when Fleming does something "good" there is usually something darker motivating him. The same is true for the opposite situation. A good example of the former can be found when after his first battle the youth is confronted by the same "loud soldier" who was so sure he was going to die. Fleming remembers that the man had given him a death message to give to the soldier’s mother, and the youth almost used it against him, but decides not to at the last second. "He resolved not to deal the little blow. It was sufficient that the fact made him glad. It was not necessary to knock the friend on the head with the misguided packet…He now rejoiced in the possession of a small weapon with which he could prostrate his comrade at the first signs of a cross-examination. He was master. It would be he who could laugh and shoot the shafts of derision" (89). Clearly the character is not good or evil, but he is ordinary, he is like most men. He does not seem any different from us.

Of course not all critics see Crane’s figure as so usual, as Mr. Wyndham bluntly contends that "had Mr. Crane taken an average man he would have written an average story" (122). Perhaps Conrad is closest to the truth: "He [the youth] only seems exceptional because he has got inside him Stephen Crane’s imagination, and is presented to us with the power of expression of an artist" (133).

Perhaps even more important are the thoughts of the youth. It is through the main character’s thoughts that we see exactly how average he is. It is through his thoughts that we see exactly how little he is above or below us. We see exactly how much he is like us. His thoughts are not always the most insightful or smart, but nor are they completely lacking in depth, in wit. Yet again, all is somewhere between the extremes. The thoughts of the youth show the desire of the average person in that he has that somewhat contradictory wish to stand out, yet at the same time, to be like everyone else, to "fit." Evidence of this can be seen when one of his comrades, the tall soldier, suggests that perhaps he will be a coward in battle. "The tall private waved his hand. ‘Well,’ said he profoundly, ‘I’ve thought it might get too hot for Jim Conklin in some of those scrimmages, and if a whole lot of boys started and run, why I s’pose I’d start and run. And if I once started to run, I’d run like the devil and no mistake.’…The youth of this tale felt gratitude for these words of his comrade. He had feared that all of the untried men possessed a great and correct confidence. He now was in a measure reassured" (20).

Similar to the other characters of the book, Crane also uses images, scenes, events, and places in the thoughts of the youth, which any normal person can relate to. Nor are these images class specific, as long as one has lived in a culture anything like our own, from any level of life, one can probably relate to these images. As Kazin notes, "One side of him [Crane] was the local village boy who never quite lost his feeling for the talk and casual pleasure of an American town, and it showed…in The Red Badge" (135). An example would be as the youth sees the enemy for the first time. "There were moments of waiting. The youth thought of the village street at home before the arrival of the circus parade on a day in the spring. He remembered how he had stood, a small, thrillful boy, prepared to follow the dingy lady upon the white horse, or the band in its faded chariot. He saw the yellow road, the lines of expectant people, and the sober houses. He particularly remembered an old fellow who used to sit upon a cracker box in front of the store and feign to despise such exhibitions. A thousand details of color and form surged in his mind. The old fellow upon the cracker box appeared in middle prominence"(39-40). Relating to the "general" class idea, it is never disclosed exactly what the wealth of Fleming is; he not necessarily dirt poor, but he is obviously not rich. What makes the character so real is that Crane never makes him larger than life, or smaller.

The setting and battles also play a major role in setting this "general" idea. It seems Crane purposely never disclosed the exact location of the setting, the name of the battle that the youth was involved in. These are vivid beyond description, yet blurred; as Robert Stallman put it, they "melt into one another"(139). As a quote from the New York Press in Chowder’s article claims, "The description of battle is so vivid as to be almost suffocating" (111). Wyndham makes a similar point: "From this moment [the start of battle] …the drama races through another hundred-sixty pages… and to read those pages is in itself an experience of breathless, lambent, detonating life. So brilliant and detached are the images…they leave their fever-bright phantasms floating before the brain" (122).

Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage is, in short, a book for people, seen through the eyes of a person. The book is not seen from some god, and even though Crane narrates, what the reader sees and feels is what the youth sees and feels, nothing less and nothing more. In The Red Badge, Crane, with these "general" images, brings us into the book.