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Have you overcome a fear, only to look back and wonder why you were so afraid? I recently went to Sky Zone and had to psych myself up for about 10 minutes just to do a backflip, but once I did–it was so natural. Stephen Crane published ‘The Red Badge of Courage’ in October 1895 about soldier Henry in the American Civil War in 1861. Ernest Hemingway printed his book ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ in September 1952 about Fishman Santiago in Cuba in 1951. Santiago had fears about catching a fish, while Henry had a dread of battles. Henry and Santiago, grappling with fear and failures, learn that isolation brings personal development.
Santiago’s failures are obvious as the reader sees his living conditions, pride, and physical condition. “The old man’s life on the island is isolated both socially and economically from the other fishermen and villagers. Foremost, he has no family. A photograph of his deceased wife serves as a reminder of this loss, but he keeps it under a clean shirt because the sight of the photograph makes him too lonely”. Santiago on the boat realizes that stress is causing him to lose physical vision and metaphorical vision. “For an hour the old man had been seeing black spots before his eyes and the sweat salted his eyes and salted the cut over his eye and on his forehead. He was not afraid of the black spots. They were normal at the tension that he was pulling on the line. Twice, though, he had felt faint and dizzy and that had worried him. ‘I could not fail myself and die on a fish like this’, he said. ‘Now that I have him coming so beautifully, God help me endure. I’ll say a hundred Our Fathers and a hundred Hail Marys. But I cannot say them now’” (Hemingway 108). The old man fears defeat because of pride, he fears ‘failing himself’, not the fish; nor is he concerned for the need to eat or make money from his catch. Santiago is out on the boat when he utters these words about his bodily failure. ”Ay,’ he said aloud. There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood” (Hemingway 108). The old man recognizes defeat when it comes, never deceiving himself and always facing reality.
Henry’s failures and fears lead to his isolation from other soldiers. ‘‘The Red Badge of Courage’ is the coming-of-age story of a young man who, against his mother’s wishes, joins the army in order to achieve the glory and adventure he has been told about through the stories about war that he hears while growing up in his hometown. Much to his shock and dismay, he discovers—as he witnesses, his comrades fall in battle—that war is dirty, dangerous, exhausting, and a source of despair. In the heat of battle, his courage is tested, and he fails”. Henry is more concerned with his isolation than he is with his reputation or his safety. “The youth would have liked to have discovered another who suspected himself. A sympathetic comparison of mental notes would have been a joy to him” (Crane 23). Henry seeks this ‘companion’ in order to justify his own cowardice and break the isolation which so torments him. Stephen Crane wrote about fears from his personal experience. “He felt alone in space when his injured comrade had disappeared. His failure to discover any mite of resemblance in their viewpoints made him more miserable than before. No one seemed to be wrestling with such a terrific personal problem. He was a mental outcast” (Crane 35-36). ‘Red Badge of Courage’ is essentially about a desire to be one of the formal soldiers and how Henry feels isolated from his comrades and envies them.
Santiago’s throughout the novel goes through isolation and solitude. “Isolation also haunts the old man’s dreams. When the old man finally allows himself to sleep during his second night at sea, he has three dreams. Between two dreams of companionship and pleasure is a dream of discomfort and cold. This harsh dream resembles the old man’s life on the island: a chilly, unpleasant night in a shack”. Solitude was just something Santiago always went through and was basically used to. “On the brown walls of the flattened, overlapping leaves of the sturdy fibered guano there was a picture in color of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and another of the Virgin of Cobre. These were relics of his wife. Once there had been a tinted photograph of his wife on the wall but he had taken it down because it made him too lonely to see it and it was on the shelf in the corner under his clean shirt” (Hemmingway 13-14). The old man has had solitude forced upon him, separated from his wife by death and the boy, by his parents. The reader understands, Santiago was already alone even before the trip out to sea and while out on the water. “Then he said aloud, ‘I wish I had the boy. To help me and to see this” (Hemingway 25). The old man later desires the boy’s presence because he wants someone to share the experience with.
Henry’s throughout his experience at war felt isolation and loneliness. “Henry Fleming, feels self-doubts that fill him with fear: Will he stand brave and fight in battle, or will he run? He hints at these fears in conversations with his comrades, hoping to find a companion with whom he can commiserate. However, the other soldiers scoff at the idea, and the youth feels alone”. Stephen Crane shows how Henry really felt during the beginning of the book and does it in a way that he was feeling with sad miserable words. “He had grown to regard himself merely as a part of a vast blue demonstration. His province was to look out, as far as he could, for his personal comfort. For recreation, he could twiddle his thumbs and speculate on the thoughts which must agitate the minds of the generals. Also, he was drilled and drilled and reviewed and drilled and drilled and reviewed” (Crane 13). Interestingly, Henry’s loss of personal identity only makes him feel more isolated. He might be part of a larger machine, but he is a nameless cog surrounded by equally mechanical counterparts. There is no connection, no comfort to be found in this grouping of men. Stephen Crane shows how Henry finds religious serenity in his isolation. “At length, he reached a place where the high, arching boughs made a chapel. He gently pushed the green doors aside and entered. Pine needles were a gentle brown carpet. There was a religious half-light. Near the threshold, he stopped, horror-stricken at the sight of a thing. He was being looked at by a dead man who was seated with his back against a column like a tree” (Crane 89-90). The almost religious serenity Henry finds in his isolation is marred by this intrusion of a dead body. It’s almost as if Crane is asking, ‘Where is God in all this, anyway?”.
Santiago’s personal development on behalf of everything he went through in his past life. Secondary Quote: “We all have a different perspective on things in our life, and as we grow up and experience more it starts to shift and most likely turn into a change”. “This is the second day now that I do not know the result of the juegos, he thought. But I must have confidence and I must be worthy of the great DiMaggio who does all things perfectly even with the pain of the bone spur in his heel. What is a bone spur? he asked himself. Un espuela de hueso. We do not have them. Can it be as painful as the spur of a fighting cock in one’s heel? I do not think I could endure that or the loss of the eye and of both eyes and continue to fight as the fighting cocks do. Man is not much beside the great birds and beasts. Still, I would rather be that beast down there in the darkness of the sea” (Hemingway 68-69). The old man believes that beasts are superior to men in their ability to endure. This is the opposite of what he previously thought.
Henry’s Personal development (including how the ‘red badge’ changed his ‘courage’). “When the youth runs from battle, it is with animal-like imagery: ‘He ran like a rabbit’ and ‘he was like a proverbial chicken’. The youth’s later determination to stand against the enemy is described in catlike images: ‘He was not going to be badgered of his life, like a kitten chased by boys, he said. It was not well to drive men into final corners; at those moments they could all develop teeth and claws’. His lieutenant uses similar images to describe him after the battle: ‘By heavens, if I had ten thousand wild cats like you I could tear th’ stomach outa this war in less’n a week!’”. Setting of the quote: “The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled train, despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort in a trough of liquid brown mud under a low, wretched sky. Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him, though many discovered it to be made of oaths and walking sticks” (Crane 254). While the indifference of the universe horrified Henry earlier, he here seems to take solace in its presence. He no longer feels alone or insignificant. Sometimes it takes one to fail multiple times to finally recognize your shortcoming and appreciate your value. “For a time this pursuing recollection of the tattered man took all elation from the youth’s veins. He saw his vivid error, and he was afraid that it would stand before him all his life. He took no share in the chatter of his comrades, nor did he look at them or know them, save when he felt sudden suspicion that they were seeing his thoughts and scrutinizing each detail of the scene with the tattered soldier. Yet gradually he mustered force to put the sin at a distance. And at last his eyes seemed to open to some new ways. He found that he could look back upon the brass and bombast of his earlier gospels and see them truly. He was gleeful when he discovered that he now despised them” (Crane 253). This quote is important to the novel’s conclusion. Henry is finally able to both recognize his shortcomings and appreciate his value. His past failures neither destroy him nor does he pretend they never happened. There’s a reason ‘acceptance’ is always the final step.
In conclusion, failures and isolations bring personal development in one’s life. Stephen Crane’s Henry and Santiago by Ernest Hemingway, show the author’s perspective of fear and failures, and isolation brings personal development.
Bibliography
- Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. Bookbyte Digital Edition, 1895.
- Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. Proofreaders Canada Ebook, 21 May 2012.
- Johnstone, Japhet. “Isolation in The Old Man and the Sea.” Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature, Facts On File, 2020. Bloom’s Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=17233&itemid=WE54&articleId=39289. Accessed 14 Oct. 2020.
- Weber, Diane R. “The Red Badge of Courage.” Student’s Encyclopedia of Great American Writers, Volume 2, Facts On File, 2010. Bloom’s Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=17233&itemid=WE54&articleId=475914. Accessed 14 Oct. 2020.
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