Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage follows protagonist Henry's enlistment and his struggle to maturing from a youthful vanity that drives most of his actions throughout the novel to a final acceptance of the indifferent reality of war and society and the inevitability of death. Although the novel ends on an optimistic note that Henry has finally become a "heroic" man, I argue that Henry's move from naivety and vanity to selflessness and maturity is not a simple and profound change, but at best a subtle and largely incomplete thought. this makes readers wonder where to draw the line at which Henry's selfishness ends and naturalism takes over. This "gray" area that Henry places between selfishness and the recognition of the inevitability of death despite human intervention ultimately shows that the two concepts are more entangled than it appears at first glance . Henry's change is therefore illustrated as a complicated process without a clear "end point" in which readers must determine which "side" Henry is on at the end of the novel. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay From the beginning of the novel, readers can immediately note Henry's youthful naivety and romantic conception of military life and war. Despite his mother's worrying words: "I know how you are...you're just another little guy" (8), Henry adopts a self-centered attitude to his military duties. Imagining the military lifestyle of the Greek heroes of ancient times, Henry considers himself worthy of attention and praise even before the start of his first battle. “…There seemed to be much glory in [the battle],” the narrator notes, “His busy mind had drawn for him great pictures of extravagant colors, sinister with breathtaking deeds” (7). Early in the novel, it seems that for Henry, his tenure in the army is not a means to an end (victory in the Civil War), but an end in itself. Henry is not portrayed as mature enough to understand the cold reality of what a career in war entails. Fearing real duty and doing everything possible not to appear cowardly in the eyes of other soldiers, Henry is fully involved in his reputation and appearance to others: duty is not as important as the glory and festivities he imagine that simply comes with being called a soldier. However, at a crucial moment in the novel, Henry finds himself faced with a microcosmic image of the inescapable reality not only of the army, but of life in general when he sees the corpse of a soldier from his regiment lying on the ground. in the middle of a battle. This harsh image of the fleeting nature of life and neglect of nature helps to undermine the theme of delusional sense of importance that he has had up to this point. Henry makes a connection with nature's cold indifference toward human beings when he notes after a battle: "It was surprising that nature continued quietly her golden process in the midst of so many devils" (52). In this broader sense, the corpse of the soldier, like the sun of nature, was only an element of the landscape; no human intervention could prevent him from this inevitable death, and it seemed that Henry had recognized this. This brief moment of recognition illuminates the opposite of Henry's state of mind, in that his physical illusions and appearances of glory may not matter, for he too will meet the inevitable fate of the soldier..