"The Red Badge of Courage" is a tale of value, honor, conflicted motivations, and a crisis of purpose and meaning. The main character, Henry, is a young man who is forced to reconcile his naive belief that war is desirous, glorious, and that the appearance of pain and suffering is honorable. Throughout the course of the novel, Henry comes to discover that war is horrible; frightening, destructive, and painful for those who are inflicted with a red badge of courage. .
The reader first meets Henry as a young man who maintains a jejune attitude and thought process toward the war raging through his country. His fantasizes of a Greek-like battle and all of the glory that comes with it. Henry dreamed that his uniform would earn the praise and recognition of those in his community. He valued the outward and surface recognition that military service would bring him. Henry saw his mother as the Greek matriarch who would charge him to "return(ing) with his shield or on it." But instead, Henry's mother gave him a reality check. She told Henry to just do what he was told and to try not to be killed in the process. Henry leaves that discussion with his mother feeling a bit ashamed of his purposes for joining the war effort, unsure of his future as a soldier, and questioning his Greek-like warrior abilities.
As Henry experiences battle for the first time, the conflict between his self doubts and desire for a glorious battle breaks free and Henry flees the battle. He was scared and terrified of the sight that he saw in front of him, the mangled bodies displaying red badges of courage. Henry runs from the raging battle until he is out of energy. He sits in the woods contemplating what he should do next and must admit to himself that he is a coward and a deserter. But even more importantly, he realizes that there is no innate satisfaction or sense of honor in killing and being killed. Rather, war is mostly fear, death, destruction, and controlled chaos.
