Pressures, Conscience, and Grace Experienced

Set in a time just before the Civil War, Frederic’s story about a pastor leads one into the tangled web of absurdities found in American Protestantism of the time, and in general.

I was raised in a family that attended a United Methodist Church (which developed from a Methodist-Episcopal Church) and strangely enough I found the instances with the church both foreign (in its extreme passages) and familiar.  The book of Discipline (basic teachings of United Methodist) and the bishop with the church conference are familiar to me.

The Damnation of Theron Ware seems to deal heavily with the problems that arise when ministry becomes a profession, and church politics mingle with money and ambition. This is not a new problem and not one that can only be attributed to the protestant church (although it is enmeshed in its history too). In fact, the church as a whole has struggled with these kinds of problems throughout the history of the church. If this is no new problem, why does Theron’s situation seem so painful to the reader?

Frederic makes the reverend and his wife very simple and likeable characters. The reader might easily begin to sympathize and relate to them. As the first meeting with the trustees unfolds one can almost feel the awkwardness in the room, and can feel the pressure that Theron undergoes with each word he speaks.

The pressures of making enough money to sustain himself and his wife, the pressures of pleasing the congregation, along with pleasing his own conscience seem to be at tension.  Can all three correlate and mesh together under one accord? Can a pastor juggle all the pressures?

It seems the only glimmers of hope in Theron’s rough situation are the odd people who show up and lend grace in the oddest ways.  There are also moments in which Theron finds grace in nature. Early in the book, Theron and his wife are relinquished of their debt in their third year at Tyre. A man offered to give them a fresh start and he asked nothing back in return. It was only because of this grace that they were able to survive the following year. There was also a strange sense of grace in little acts from  Mr. Gorringe. While no one understood the man, he was the one who made the transition to Octavius bearable. His grave face and a wink at the end of the trustee meeting eased Theron’s anxiety. Theron had been right when he sensed a tone of “anti-Pierce” in the man’s intonations.

It interesting to note how Frederic includes little glimmerings of hope and grace in The Damnation of Theron Ware. While he made his characters realistic and relatable he also included these little moments of grace which made the story seem so real. 

A Passage From Chapter 12

The youth left the scene behind him and he heard and he heard the guns roar suddenly. He imagined them shaking with black rage. Like brass devils guarding a gate, they belched and howled. The soft air filled with tremendous remonstrance and the shattering peal of the opposing infantry came with it. As he turned to look behind him, he saw the sheets of orange light illumine the shadowy distance. Subtle and sudden lightnings were in the far air and he imagined he could see masses of men heaving.

In the dusk he hurried on. The day had faded until he could barley distinguish place for his feet. Men, who lectured and jabbered, filled the purple darkness. The youth could sometimes see them gesticulating against the blue and somber sky. In the forest and fields, a great ruck of men were spread about.

The little narrow roadway now lay lifeless. Like sun-dried boulders, there sat overturned wagons. Bodies of horses and splintered parts of war machines chocked the bed of the former torrent.

His wound pained him now and he was afraid to move rapidly, for a dread of disturbing it. He held his head very still and took many precautions against stumbling. Anxiety filled him and the anticipation of pain of any sudden mistake pinched his face in the gloom.

His thoughts fixed intently upon his hurt as he walked, about which there was a cool, liquid feeling. He imagined blood moving slowly down under his hair. His head was swollen to a size that made him think his neck was a inadequate size. 

The Red Badge of Courage, Chapter 7: First Page Revisited

The young man cringed in guilt. “So they have won after all!” he thought. The line of idiot soldiers still remained and was triumphant in spite of everything, and he could hear them cheering in the distance.

                He stood up on his toes and looked off towards the fight. As he looked, he saw a yellow fog drifting through the treetops and beneath it he heard the clattering of muskets, advancing with hoarse, indeterminate shouts of victory.

                He turned away in wrath and amazement, and within his heart blazed the bitter, inescapable feeling that he had been grossly cheated.

                As he tried to collect his memories, he still told himself that he had fled because otherwise he would have been annihilated. “I have done well to save myself,” he mused, “for I am only a little piece of the army, and as far as I’m concerned the moment that I have just ran from was a time in which it is better that every man save himself rather than be slaughtered in full. Indeed, after the initial retreat,” he continued to contemplate, “ the officers could round us up and build a new front, if they so chose to, so why should it be that no one retreat in the face of impending death? It is wiser still for us little pieces to run and hide, for without us there would be no army, and in our deaths there would be no one to bear the flag.” It was clear to him, then, that he was not a deserter as he may have once feared but had followed the greater set of rules after all. How wise was he to obey this strategy instead! Indeed, he possessed a master’s legs and a patriot’s mind.

Chapter 11

A certain moth-like quality within him kept him in the vicinity of the battle. He desired to see or get news. He wished to know who was winning.

He told himself that, despite his unprecedented suffering, he had never lost his greed for a victory, yet, he said, in a half-apologetic manner to his conscience, he could not but know that a defeat for the army this time might mean many favorable things for him. The enemy’s blows would splinter the regiment. Men would desert the colors and scurry like chicken. He would appear as one of them. 

They would be sullen brothers in distress, and he could easily believe in his virtuous perfection, he conceived that there would be small trouble in convincing all others.

He said, as if in excuse for this hope, that previously the army had encountered great defeats and in a few months had shaken off all blood and tradition in them, emerging as bright and valiant as a new one; thrusting out of sight the memory of disaster, and appearing with the valor and confidence of unconquered legions.  He felt no compunction sacrificing a general. He could not tell who the chosen for the barbs might be, so he could center no direct sympathy upon him. The people were afar and he did not conceive public opinion to be accurate at long range.

The Life of a Solider

After journeying with many complications and pauses, there came months of monotonous life in the camp. He believed that real war was a series of death struggles with only a small time in between for sleep and meals; but ever since his regiment settled in the field the army merely sat still and tried to keep warm.

He eventually thought back to his old ideas. The greeklike struggles of men faded away. Men behaved better and more timidly. Secular and religious education effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or either firm finance held the passions in check.

He grew to regard himself merely as a part of a vast blue demonstration. His province, to look out as far as he could, for his personal comfort. For recreation, he twiddled his thumbs and speculated on the thoughts which must agitate the minds of the generals. Also, he drilled and drilled and reviewed, and drilled and drilled and reviewed.

The only foes he saw were some pickets along the river bank. They appeared to be a suntanned, philosophical lot, who sometimes shot reflectively at the blue pickets. When reproached for this afterward, they usually expressed sorrow, and swore by their gods that the guns exploded without their permission. The youth, on guard duty one night, conversed across the stream with one of them. He, a slightly ragged man, spat skillfully between his shoes and possessed a great fund of bland and infantile assurance. The youth liked him personally.

“Yank,” the other informed him, “yer a right dum good feller.” This sentiment, floated to him upon the still air, and made him temporarily regret war.

Various veterans told him tales. Some talked about gray bewhiskered hordes advancing with relentless curses and chewing tobacco valiantly; tremendous bodies of fierce soldiery sweeping along like huns. Others spoke of tattered and eternally hungry men firing despondent powders….     

Beginning of Chapter 5 Rewritten

The army waits restlessly as the long moments creep by very slowly. The waiting reminds the youth of the village street back home as everyone waited in anticipation for the circus parade to pass in the spring. He remembers standing as a small, thrillful boy, preparing to follow the dingy lady upon the white horse, or the band in its faded chariot. He can clearly see the yellow road, the lines of expectant people, and the sober houses. He distinctly remembers an old fellow who used to sit in front of the store, feigning to despise such exhibitions. A thousand details of color and form surge brightly in his mind. The old fellow upon the cracker box appearing in middle prominence.

Some one cries, “Here they come!”

There is a great rustling and muttering among the men. They display a feverish desire to have every possible cartridge easily accessible. The boxes are pulled around into various positions, and the men adjust them carefully and strategically. It is as if they are trying on seven hundred new bonnets.

The tall soldier prepares his rifle and produces a red handkerchief. He is in the process of tying the handkerchief around his neck, paying close attention to where he places the cloth, when the cry is repeated up and down the line. The muffled sound echoes like a roar as it passes to either end of the line.

“Here they come! Here they come!” Gun locks click as the soldiers ready their weapons.

Across the smoke-infested fields come a brown swarm of running men whose yells echo shrilly as they advance. As they advance, they stop and swing their rifles at all angles. A tilted flag advances quickly at the front of the line.

The youth catches sight of the advancing army and suddenly wonders if perhaps his gun is loaded. As they continue to advance he tries to remember loading it and soon concludes it isn’t loaded, and that frightens him. (Beginning of Chapter Five) 

Chapter 19 Red Badge of Courage Rewritten

The youth stared at the land in front of him. Its foliages veiled powers and horrors.He did not know of the machinery of orders that started the charge, although from the corners of his eyes, he seemingly saw a boyish officer waving his hat and riding a galloping horse. Suddenly, he felt a straining and heaving among the men. The line fell slowly forward like a toppling wall, and, intending a cheer with a convulsive gasp, the regiment began its journey. The regiment pushed and jostled the youth for a moment before he understood the movement at all, but directly he lunged ahead and began to run.


He fixed his eye upon a distant and prominent clump of trees where he concluded the soldiers were meeting the enemy, and he ran toward it as toward a goal. He believed throughout that he simply must get over an unpleasant matter as quickly as possible, and he ran desperately, as if running from murderous pursuit. He drew his face hard and tight with the stress of his endeavor. He fixed his eyes in a lurid glare.

And with his soiled and disordered dress, the dingy rag with its spot of blood, his wildly swinging rifle, and banging accouterments surmounted his red and inflamed features, he resembled an insane soldier. As the regiment swung from its position out into a cleared space, the woods and thickets around it awakened. Yellow flames leaped toward it from many directions. The forest made a tremendous objection.

The line lurched straight for a moment. Then the right wing swung forward; then the left surpassed the right. Afterward the center careered to the front until the regiment formed a wedge-shaped mass, but an instant later the opposition of the bushes, trees, and uneven places on the ground split the command and scattered it into detached clusters.

Overwhelming Battle

The Red Badge of Courage, Chapter 16 -- Rewrite

The men heard the unceasing sputter of muskets. Later, the cannon entered the dispute. In the fog-filled air their voices thudded. The reverberations continued without respite. This part of the world led a strange, battleful existence.

Leaders marched the youth's regiment to relieve a command that had lain long in some damp trenches. The men positioned behind a curving line of rifle pits the others turned up, like a large furrow, along the line of woods. Before them a level stretch expanded, peopled with short, deformed stumps. Skirmishers and pickets popped from the woods beyond, firing in the fog. The noise of a terrific fracas called from the right.

The men cuddled behind the small embankment and sat in easy attitudes awaiting their turn. Many kept their backs to the firing. The youth's friend lay down, buried his face in his arms, and almost instantly, it seemed, fell into a deep sleep.

The youth leaned his breast against the brown dirt and peered over at the woods and up and down the line. Curtains of trees interfered with his ways of vision. He saw the low line of trenches but for a short distance. A few idle flags perched on the dirt hills. Behind them rows of dark bodies with a few heads stuck curiously over the top.

Always the noise of skirmishers sounded from the woods on the front and left, and the din on the right grew to frightful proportions. The guns roared without an instant's pause for breath. The men saw the cannon emerge from all parts and engage in a stupendous wrangle. No one could hear a sentence.

People, Places, and Things

I never realized, and maybe I never took the time, as a younger girl that the one and only book all the boys were wrestling over was not just a war tale but a war tale that took place over...what, two maybe three days?  I’m not complaining, I simply thought it was more extensive or perhaps thorough, though I am glad it is not more than it is. 

Crane does a beautiful job of dealing extensively and singularly with the thoughts of one character and one character only.  Often I find that some writers keep in the general way of a singular character while tending to jump to another character and back to the main.  I do not recall once in the duration of The Red Badge of Courage that Crane moves from the thoughts of Henry Fleming.  Anything outside of Henry is noted and thoughts are assumed of others in their appearances and mannerisms but never from their perspective.  Crane also does not name his characters until necessary, which leaves the whole thing vague and again, focused entirely on the thoughts of Henry Fleming. 

The change in Fleming is immediate, and it caught me off guard.  One minute you have a frightened youth, the next you have a blood-thirsty war mongrel.  I feel like I missed the part he became a man, though he doesn’t claim himself as one until the end.  There is a strange religiousness to the war (…battle?) according to Henry Fleming.  In running, he spends the rest of the time, in a way, paying penance for his fleeing the fight—for failing to fulfill the role of the heroes of the Greek epics he so praises.  When he does fulfill the role he builds up in his mind, still he is haunted by the ghost of yesterday.  In addition to religious imagery, there is industry/mechanical imagery to the war. 

I don’t really know what all the implications of these things would be, but I would certainly like to discuss that further in class.  I’ll come with the selections bookmarked.