constructing pathways to translation - Higher Education Commission

Sergio Perosa states that ‘The Red Badge of Courage’ is indeed a triumph of
impressionistic vision and impressionistic technique. Only few episodes are described
from outside. Fleming’s mind is seldom analyzed in an objective, omniscient way; very
few individuals are extensively told. Practically every scene is filtered through
Fleming’s point of view and seen through his eyes. Everything is related to his vision, to
his sense perception of incidents and details, to his sense reactions rather than to his
psychological impulses, to his confused sensations and individual impressions’
(Bloom,1987).
6.2.1 THEMES IN ‘THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE’
Self-knowledge is the main theme of the novel. The method of the novel is a rendering
of Fleming’s apprehensions and his thoughts: its unifying and informing theme is the
development of his capacity to see himself in the context of war more clearly. Henry’s
initiation into maturity becomes a function of his perception of life, death and his own
incapacitating fear. After the opening of the novel, the concentration is on Henry’s
mind. In the first paragraph, before Henry has been introduced, an abstract third person
narration presents an establishing scene.
The cold passed reluctantly from the earth and the retiring fogs revealed as 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. It
cast its eyes upon the roads which were growing from the long troughs of liquid
mud to proper thorough fares. A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks,
pushed at the army’s feet and at night when the stream had become of a sorrowful
blackness one could see across the red, eye like glean of hostile camp-fires set in
the two brows of distant hills (Crane, 1895:09).
This passage, for Henry, had a function beyond its metaphoric value. For the first time
he is able to see clearly. “It seemed to the youth that he saw everything. Each blade of
the green grass was bold and clear. He thought he was aware of every change in the thin,
transparent vapor that floated idly in the streets” (Crane,1895:59).
Horsfod explores the novel’s double perspective and reveals that shift in Henry
Fleming’s disposition is echoed in the various shifts of the narration – especially in the
alternation between a personal and a cosmic voice (Mitchell,1986:20). Through a
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