Red Badge of Courage Resources
  Realism: Reading Steven Crane

Reading Study Guide

Chapters 1-2

1. Obliged
2. Despondent
3. Obscurity
4. Ominous
5. Sullen
6. Blithe
7. Dauntless
8. Indignantly

Reading Check Questions
1. What news did the tall soldier bring from the river?
2. What was the reaction of each (the tall soldier, youthful private, and loud soldier) to the news?
3. What question caused the youthful soldier great concern?
4. From whose point of view is the story written?
5. What made Henry feel like a “mental outcast”?

Chapters 3 - 5
9.  Ponderous
10. Placidly
11. Formidable
12. Facetious
13. Menacing
14. Annihilated
15. Exasperation
16. Contortions

Reading Check Questions
1. Why does Henry think “it would be better to get killed directly”?
2. What did the loud soldier give the young soldier at the end of Chapter 3? What do we learn about the loud soldier in that scene?
3. [The Officers] “neglected to stand in picturesque attitudes.” What do we learn from this detail?
4. What was the outcome of the youth’s first battle?

Chapters 6 - 9
17. Vanquished
18. Orbs
19. Impending
20. Chaos
21. Perfunctory
22. Sardonic
23. Specter
24. Ague

Reading Check Questions
1. What was the youth’s opinion of himself after the first battle?
2. What “impossible thing” happened after the first battle?
3. Did the youth retreat at the second attack?
4. Why did the youth feel wronged?
5. Why did the squirrel’s running make him feel better?
6. What did the youth find deep in the woods in the “chapel”?
7. Identify the tattered man.
8. Why didn’t the youth want to talk to the tattered man?
9. The youth “wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage. “Why?
10. The youth meets Jim Conklin, the tall soldier, again in Chapter 9. What does Henry promise Jim?
11. What is the significance of

a . the location of Jim’s wounds?
b. “The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer?”
c. Jim’s initials?

Chapters 10 - 13
25. Imprecations
26. Sinuous
27. Malediction
28. Vindication
29. Heedless
30. Altercation
31. Audacious
32. Reproof

Reading Check Questions
1. Why did Henry leave the tattered man again?
2. Why did Henry wish he were dead?
3. What did the tattered man want from Henry? Why did he keep talking to Henry?
4. The main conflict of this chapter is Henry vs. Himself. Explain.
5. Henry is finally wounded. By whom and how?
6. How did Henry get back to his regiment?
7. Identify Wilson.
8. What was Henry’s lie?
9. Why did Henry “fumble with the buttons on his jacket”?
10. Why is it significant that Henry asks Wilson where he’s going to sleep and what he’s going to sleep in?

Chapters 14 - 17
33. Reliance
34. Disconcerted
35. Condescension
36. Denunciation
37. Abject
38. Denoted
39. Repose

Reading Check Questions
1. What change did Henry notice in Wilson?
2. What does Crane mean when he says, “Apparently the other [Wilson] had now climbed
a peak of wisdom from which he could perceive himself a very wee thing”?
3. Why does Henry say “So?” at the end of the chapter?
4. Why and how was Henry’s self-pride restored?
5. Henry thinks “he could leave much to chance.” Explain.
6. Back in Chapter 10, Henry wished he were dead. Here at the end of Chapter 15, what is his attitude?
7. Why was Henry “dumbfounded” at hearing himself say, “Well, don’t we fight like the devil . . . .”?
8. What made Henry “suddenly a modest person”?
9. “He had slept and, awakening, had found himself a knight.” Explain.

Chapters 18 - 21
40. Interminably
41. Delirium
42. Discerned
43. Dilapidated
44. Ludicrous
45. Proximity
46. Impetus
47. Smitten

Reading Check Questions
1. What information did Henry and Wilson bring back to the regiment after they had gone to look for water?
2. “The youth stared at the land in front of him. It’s foliages now seemed to veil powers and horrors. “What does that mean?
3. Henry grabs the flag. “Because no harm could come to it, he endowed it with power. He kept near, as if it could be the saver of lives . . . ."Explain how Henry can think this as he grabs the flag from the dead color sergeant.
4. “The retreat of the mule drivers was a march of shame to him . . .He presently wrapped heart in a cloak of pride and kept the flag erect.” What does this tell us about Henry’s character now?
5. After retreating, the regiment faces yet another chance battle, which it wins. What does this do for the morale?
6. This chapter ends with “And they were men.” Explain.
7. What did the officer tell Col. MacChesnay?
8. How did the men react to the conversation between the officer and the Colonel?
9. What did Thompson tell Henry and Wilson and what effect did it have on them?

Chapters 22 - 24
48. Prodigious
49. Perpetually
50. Obdurate
51. Morose
52. Incorrigible
53. Elation
54. Bedraggled

Reading Check Questions
1. In the battle in Chapter 22, Henry was “deeply absorbed as a spectator” with “serene self-confidence.” Contrast this with his attitude in earlier battles.
2. What was Henry’s goal in Chapter 23? Did he achieve it?
3. In this chapter, Henry evaluates himself. What does he decide about his public deeds in battle? His treatment of the tattered soldier?
4. “Yet gradually he mustered force to put the sin at a distance.” What is the “sin”? Why is it important for him to put it at a distance?
5. “He was a man.” Why? How is “man” defined in The Red Badge of Courage?

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