This week’s ‘comparative’ essay will discuss the novel The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (which was also discussed in a different post, a few weeks ago), and the classic First World War novel A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. The essay below aims to identify and discuss themes and topics relating to conflict and violence in the two novels. Ultimately, this essay suggests that conflict and violence are portrayed as immoral, evil, and unnecessary acts in both novels.
Conflict and violence as immoral and unnatural acts in The Red Badge of Courage and A Farewell to Arms.
Warfare has traditionally occurred between nations and states, and it is waged today with the help of military technology and armed forces, often resulting in uneven setbacks and successes as the conflict continues. According to Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, a just war theory assumes that in warfare, there should be ‘legitimate uses of war’ and a defined set of ‘moral boundaries in the waging of war’ between the belligerents (1). Some participants in warfare may, however, question the idea of engaging in war and inflicting violence upon others, or even reject the legitimacy and morality of conflict and war entirely. This essay will discuss how conflict and violence are depicted as immoral, evil and unnecessary acts in the novels The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane and A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway.
In the novel The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (1895), conflict and violence are depicted with realistic imagery of war throughout and are described as unnecessary and evil acts committed by men. After a retreat, triggered by a potential risk of failure in the first battle the story’s protagonist Henry Fleming contemplates his commitment to the war effort: ‘If none of the little pieces were wise enough to save themselves from the flurry of death at such time, why, then there would be the army? It was all plain that he had proceeded according to very correct and commendable rules’ (Crane 41). This attempt to explain one’s actions and find reason and rules in warfare indicates that the character struggles to find moral justification for taking part in a conflict. The futility of war and conflict is further emphasized in the subsequent passage, where Henry is reminded of the physical reality of war, as he discovers the rotting corpse of a soldier: ‘The youth gave a shriek as he confronted the thing…He was pursued by a sight of the black ants swarming greedily upon the gray face and venturing horribly near to the eyes’ (Crane 43). This scene in the novel subtly suggests that violent actions inflicted by humans upon one another is neither morally acceptable nor natural human behaviour. Instead, engaging in warfare is unnatural human conduct, bearing very real and gory consequences. Thus, actions of violence and war can never be reasonably motivated or justified.
In the novel The Red Badge of Courage, Henry Fleming is plagued with doubt over the moral legitimacy of war and is presented with a graphic result of deadly violence. Throughout the novel, he struggles to identify a firm set of beliefs guiding him in this conflict. This notion of destructive warfare lacking distinctive rules and patterns, which are understandable for humans is also supported partially in Cambridge Companion to War Writing, in which Cole writes that:
When it comes to the subject of war’s human consequences its writing almost inevitably follows a deconstructive pattern: war creates distinct types only to miscegenate them; it posits insurmountable differences only to surmount them (at least partially); it organizes the world by animosity only to forge imaginative unities. (26)
This depiction of Henry Fleming’s questioning of the conduct of war and violence in the novel could thus be interpreted as an indication of Crane’s attempt to display a certain level of criticism of war and its legitimacy. In Crane’s Life and Times, Crews notes that much of Crane’s work was affected by naturalistic ‘ideals and social developments’ of the time (122). Crane captures the essence of unjustifiable warfare by describing the internal moral battle of Henry Fleming realistically and omits any elements of traditional heroism connected to conflict and violence. In the novel, the ‘unnatural nature’ of warfare is poignantly depicted through the constant stream of Henry’s inner dialogue, in which he attempts to comprehend the evilness, validate his own actions and analyse the actions of others in this war, in vain. As Solomon notes in A Definition of The War Novel, this method of realistic storytelling utilised by Crane would set the tone for future war writing, and particularly for the First World War writers, such as Ernest Hemingway (184).
In the novel A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (1929), the necessity for finding reason and justification for conflict and violence is most visible in the passage relating to the retreat from Caporetto, and its aftermath. In the novel, Hemingway writes how the protagonist Frederic Henry, somewhat out-of-character first shoots an escaping fellow soldier in the back, and then moments later reflects on the sudden death of Aymo, a fellow comrade: ‘He lay in the mud on the side of the embankment, his feet pointing downhill, breathing blood regularly…’ (190) and ‘Nobody gave any orders, let alone Germans. Still, they would shoot us for Germans. They shot Aymo.’ (192). This depiction of Aymo’s dead body on a muddy field, twisted in an unnatural and strange position, further symbolises the abnormality of war and conflict between humans. In the wake of Aymo’s death, Frederic Henry attempts to understand the reasoning behind the actions of both his allies and the enemy, but to no avail: war and violence ultimately distort both the human body and the mind. This notion of a body being used as a symbol for opposition of war is partially supported by Cole in Cambridge Companion to War Writing, in which she writes:‘…over and over, we find in war writing the provocation that the dead and wounded body… pushes back against the oppositions of war’ (28).
In A Farewell to Arms, self-doubt and questioning of the legitimacy of war and violence is further highlighted in Hemingway’s description of Frederic Henry’s rendez-vous with Catherine Barkley in a Swiss hotel room:
If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. (222)
This description of Frederic Henry’s bitter epiphany, that war and conflict take no prisoners and that it kills and maims everyone participating in it, further indicates that conflict and violence are depicted as unjustifiable and inherently evil. As Cole notes in Cambridge Companion to War Writing, ‘Death, as every soldier has noted, is indiscriminate.’ (25). In the novel, the randomness and evilness of war which Hemingway imposes even on innocent civilians, becomes poignantly clear to Frederic Henry in the end when Catherine and the newborn baby suddenly pass away. In the novel A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway continues in Crane’s footsteps and provides a naturalistic and realistic portrayal of conflict and violence. By doing so, Hemingway (in a similar manner to Crane) points out that warfare is unnecessary and evil.
In conclusion, a set of principles such as reasonable prospects of success and a firm belief in fighting for a just cause govern the conduct of warfare and participation in it. In the novels discussed in this essay, these principles do not apply. Instead, the protagonists experience conflict and violence as evil and unjustifiable, and realise that warfare ultimately destroys the mind and body of everyone on its path. In The Red Badge of Courage and A Farewell to Arms, conflict and violence can never be morally or rationally motivated by the characters: the only thing certain in warfare is its immorality and evilness, and its imminent threat of injury and death.
Works Cited
Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. “Just War.” Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/explore-engage/key-terms/just-war. Accessed 23 Apr 2024.
Cole, Sarah. “People in War”. The Cambridge Companion to War Writing, edited by K. McLoughlin, Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 25-37.
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage and Other Stories. Oxford University Press, 2008.
Crews, Frederick. “Stephen Crane’s Life and Times: An Introduction”. The Red Badge of Courage: A Norton Critical Edition, edited by D. Pizer and E.C Link, W.W Norton, 2007, pp 117-123.
Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. Arrow Books, 2008.
Solomon, Eric. “A Definition of The War Novel”. Stephen Crane: From Parody to Realism, Harvard University Press, 1966, pp. 181-187.
Notes on Literature 