Many young adults are faced with the issues of maturing and learning from their mistakes. One young adult who also has to deal with these things is Henry Fleming from the Red Badge of Courage. At the beginning of the book he is immature and childlike, but when he goes to war he has many experiences that help him grow. One big mistake was going to war for the dream of becoming a hero. Another is when actually on the battlefront, he ran away from all of the action. Everyone makes mistakes in their life. Henry Fleming makes a lot of mistakes during his time in the Civil War, but learns from all of them. Mistakes help people grow and mature through life.
Henry would not have earned his maturity if he did not have any mistakes to learn from. He was very immature at the beginning of the Red Badge of Courage because he only signed up to go into battle to become a hero. He never thought of the risk of death, the cause of the war, or all of the things he would have to leave behind. The dream of becoming a hero is a very bad reason to fight; Henry should of thought about everything before putting his life in danger. Another thing Henry did that showed his immaturity was running from the battle. After the troupes walked around the woods for a few hours, once they finally began to shoot, he ran. He did not realize that everyone else was also very scared, but he was one of the cowards who didn't stay to fight. By doing that, Henry let down all of the other soldiers, because they need as many men fighting as possible. Running away was a very immature and selfish thing to do. Henry was very immature when he made the mistakes of signing up for war because of a dream of being a hero, and also when he ran from battle.
Though Henry makes many mistakes, he actually learns of his wrong doings. This is part of his process of becoming a mature adult. He learns that his idea of heroism is wrong when he ran from the battle.
