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Natalia Antunes
22/03/2014

Word Count – 274/3,300

`The American novelist Frank Norris wrote, ‘’the world wants men,
great, strong, harsh, brutal men’’
...
How do Stephen Crane and Wilfred Owen
explore the idea of manhood? In the course of your writing, show
how your reading of Pat Barker’s Regeneration has illuminated
your understanding of the other texts
...
Henry is thrown
into the battle scene and spends the majority of the novel behaving like a
boy
...

Wilfred Owen used the theme of manhood throughout his poetry
...
War poems in previous centuries
were initially written as a way of corresponding war, but over the years,
many were used as a way of escaping the situation in which the soldiers
were placed
...
Poets
and writers changed their opinions on war from it being exciting and
adventurous to horrific and terrifying
...

In 1918, Owen wrote a draft of a preface which he had hoped to
publish the following year, it read:
‘This is not about heroes
...
My subject is War, and the pity of War
...
’[1] – May, 1918
In some of his later work we can see that Owen thought that
manhood and glory were being advertised in a biased manner in order to

[1] ] Wilfred Owen – A Remembrance Tale (Documentary by BBC Four, 2012
...
[http://www
...
com/watch?v=09qkj-QS8-g]

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Word Count – 358
Cumulative - 632/3,300

Natalia Antunes

convince young men to join the war
...
Owen felt he had the responsibility of
being honest and truthful about the realities of war
...
’[2] - 1920
Unlike Crane’s main character in the beginning of The Red Badge
of Courage - who seems to be more than eager to join the war as ‘’He
had read of marches, sieges, conflicts, and he had longed to see it
all’’(Chapter1) - the characters found in Owen’s later poems have had
their romanticized ideas of manhood and honour shattered by the war
they had previously longed to join
...
As well as the Bible, Owen was
very much influenced by John Keats
...

This style of writing can be found in some of Owen’s poems such
as ‘Greater Love’, where Owen describes a soldier speaking to love as
he compares it to war and cowardice
...
’ The use of romantic words here
such as ‘‘red’’, ‘‘lips’’ and ‘‘kissed’’ establishes a contrast between a
woman and war
...
In this
way Owen joins his own memories of the horrors of war and Keats’
Romanticism in order to make the reader feel all of the emotions and
reflections which would come to one’s mind if placed in the same
situation
...
Poems by Wilfred Owen (With an Introduction by Siegfried Sassoon)
...

[3] OWEN, Wilfred
...
Ware (Hertfordshire): Wordsworth, (1994)
...
The novel deals largely with Fleming’s
education regarding the difference between ‘bravado and bravery,
dishonesty and integrity, dishonour and nobility’[4] as well as pride and
humility through the school of experience
...

Emasculating images run throughout Regeneration whether it is
physical emasculation or horrific psychological wounds which strip men
of their sense of manhood
...
’’(Chapter5)
...
This is the world which Frank
Norris, a journalist and reporter of the Spanish-American War for
McClure's Magazine describes:
’The world wants men, great, strong, harsh, brutal men’’[5]
This echoes the idea of manhood in society which was reflected on
young men, like Fleming, who believed that behaving honourably in war
would make them a hero
...
Many parents and communities also expected
young men to go into war and fight as part of growing up and becoming
a man
...
The Red Badge of Courage (Ignatius Critical Editions)
...
Ignatius Press (2012)
...
(http://www
...
schoolnet
...
uk/Jnorris
...
The act of standing up for your beliefs and going against
society’s ideals can also be seen as brave
...
’’(Chapter17)
...
Owen starts off by describing the soldiers as ‘old
beggars’ which suggests that war has crippled them mentally and
physically; ‘men marched asleep’ makes us picture the soldiers in a
zombie-like state as war has stolen all their energy and exhausted them
...
under a green sea, I saw him drowning
...
He tells us about his nightmares
where the soldier he saw dying ’
...
’ all very strong and harsh verbs which are repeated in the
present tense throughout the poem
...

Nightmares and psychiatric treatments are also used in
Regeneration in order to portray graphic images of war
...
Just like Fleming in The Red
Badge of Courage who is confronted with a dead man with whom he
had ‘’exchanged a long look’’(Chapter7), Prior confronts death face to
face, an experience so powerful which also affects Rivers, adding an
extra dimension to the memory - much like Owen’s dream described
throughout ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’
...
The two met in Craiglockhart where the poem
was drafted
...
For example
in his poem ‘Suicide in the Trenches’ he writes:
‘With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain
...
’[6]

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Sassoon mocked the concept of ‘manhood’ as what was meant to
turn young boys into ‘men’ resulted in their ultimate death or serious
psychological wounds
...
’’
(Chapter 1)
Many found Sassoon’s description of war to be too extreme as he
captured the soldiers’ weariness of a seemingly never-ending war
...
McDowell stated that Sassoon’s poems were
‘harshly realistic laments or satires’[7]
This of course rubbed off on Owen as he was ‘’intrigued with the
concept of writing from experience’’[8] which contradicts his previous
romantic style influenced by Keats
...
how to channel memories of battle – recurring in obsessive nightmares
that were a symptom of shell shock – into poems,’[9]
Word Count – 340
Cumulative – 1,922/3,300
[6] SASSOON, Siegfried
...
Hardpress Publishing (28 January 2013)
[7] BRUCCOLI, Matthew J
...
106
...
These realistic poems heavily interested and influenced

[8] OWEN, Wilfred
...
Counter-Attack and Other Poems
...
those who
survived found their best work associated with the experience that most
were trying to forget’’[10]
When looking at the last few lines of ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ we get a
sense that we as readers are directly addressed by Owen as he states
‘My friend, you would not tell with such zest
...
’ This is a strong anti-war statement made
by Owen as he fights against the Latin statement and the idea that with
war comes honour, manhood and glory
...
These ironies of war can
be found not only in Owen’s ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ but also in Barker’s
Regeneration where ‘’-the real life equivalent of all the adventure stories
they’d devoured as boys- consisted of crouching in a dugout, waiting to
be killed
...
However,
Civil War soldiers were initially inexperienced and even when they were
not fighting the ‘enemy’, they were battling illnesses, lack of food and
extreme weather conditions, not to mention the amount of death they
would have had to witness in a short period of time, in The Red Badge
of Courage ‘’the men dropped here and there like bundles’’(Chapter5),
violent images such as these often contributed to mental illnesses such
as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
...
– Elaine Showalter[11]
[10] Pat Barker’sShowalter, Greg(http://www
...
co
...
‘breaks unwritten codes dictating appropriate male behaviours’ which
[11] SHOWALTER, Elaine
...
1980
...
The way in
which mental illnesses were dealt with
‘’
...
’’[12]
Physical and psychological wounds were not what soldiers
expected to gain from war, Owen’s poem ‘Disabled’ deals with what
soldiers were left with after fighting in the war
...
thought of jewelled hilts/For daggers in plaid socks, of smart
salutes;/And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;’ This has a harsh
contrast with the following lines which tells the readers what happens
after the war and how ‘Now, he will spend a few sick years in
institute/And do what things the rules consider wise,’ Images of men
dealing with the physical results of war can also be found in
Regeneration where ‘’men in blue hospital uniforms sat in wheelchairs,
waiting for someone to come and push them away’’(Chapter14)
...

When looking at the character of Henry Fleming, we can see that
his thoughts and actions are almost always triggered and based on ‘selfdoubt, preoccupation with his self-image and self-excusing’[13], not
something expected from someone who has grown into a more mature
human being
...

Fleming asks Jim Conklin, ‘How do you know you won’t run when the
time comes?’(Chapter2), this of course applies to Fleming himself and
his self-doubts as he looks for assurance from others
...
’ This suggests that Fleming struggles with
his own ideas of what it means to be courageous and what it Count – 433
Word means to
Cumulative – 2,721/3,300
be ‘a man’
...
Crane states that at the end of the novel ‘he
Although "Regeneration" (York Notes Advanced) Longman; 1 edition
(9 July 2009)


was a man’,
many critics would still argue that Fleming’s ‘manhood’ is superficial and
[13] MITCHELL, Lee Clark
...
Mitchell Kalpakgian Nov 1986)
Novel) Cambridge University Press (28stated that:

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Natalia Antunes

‘An authentic red badge of courage is earned, not invented, and a
true red badge of courage appears in the depths of the heart, not as an
outward ornament for display and vainglory
...
The fact that Fleming fashions himself to be a hero and wears
his false red badge of courage does not make him a hero or a man
contrasting with his initial ideas of manhood
...
In the last
sentences of the final chapter our protagonist reflects on the events of
the last two days
...
He was a man
...

A technique used by Crane is that of suspense created by sudden
and unexpected shifts in the story
...
Fleming’s
train of thought and beliefs are always unexpectedly changing which
gives the readers no certainty as to how Fleming will act in future events
...
e
...

The sense of uncertainty found in Crane’s novel can also be found in
Wilfred Owen’s poem ‘Spring Offensive’ where ‘
...
/Of them who
running on that last high place,’ the soldiers run into the unknown without
any kind of assurance that they will be back
...
It can be argued that self-sacrifice is part of
manhood as it shows courage and selflessness; this canWordseen near
be Count – 392
Cumulative – 3,113/3,300
the end of The Red Badge of Courage as Fleming felt ‘’He was capable
of profound sacrifices, a tremendous death’’(Chapter23)
...
The Red Badge of Courage (Ignatius Critical Editions)
...
Ignatius Press (2012)
...
In order for him to
about war Crane must have been influenced by many songs, letters and
memoirs which were written during the war period
...
W
...
R
...
A letter by a Union soldier called
Newton Scott described the loss of hope and the reality of war:
’
...

Am well, but don’t see any prospect of getting home very soon
...
War was never as glorious as
expected and many wished to return home but never saw any hope of
doing so
...
In the poem, the soldiers search for their loved ones as they
face death
...

This is of course all in vain as the weapons used to kill them will have
‘the last laugh’
...
The line ‘The bullets chirped – In vain!
vain! vain’ references the idea that the weapons are ‘telling the soldiers
off’ for trying to stay alive when it will all be in vain
...

Crane’s description of the woods are presented vividly in the novel
as Fleming is held back by nature after running away from battle, ’the
branches, pushing against him, threatened to throw him over upon
it
...
Crane never mentions the name of the main battle described
in his novel, however, many believe that Crane was describing the Battle
of Chancellorsville as the thick forest and the Potomac and
Rappahannock rivers were all mentioned by Crane
...

War meant freedom for many women who Masterpieces Series, oppressed
[15] CRANE, Stephen
...

EMC/Paradigm for simply being women
...

that ‘’ [On the 4th of August, 1914] Peace broke out
...
The Red Badge of Courage (The EMC Masterpieces Series, Access Editions)
...
This supports the idea
EMC/Paradigm Publishing (2000)
...


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Natalia Antunes

It can be said that men are to this day forced to be masculine in
order to survive in a society which puts courage and fearlessness on a
pedestal
...
Crane writes about
what war meant to soldiers at that time and how one could be changed
as the result of war, Owen gives the reader are more personal view of
the horrors of war and describes how the mentality of soldiers had
changed
...


Total: 2,551

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