Henry - the main character of 'The Red Badge of Courage’ by Stephen Crane - starts the book as a hopeful and introverted teen who wants a chance to show and be known as a bold and fearless soldier. He hopes for a uniform and to have a gun with proud purpose. Henry, or “the youth” as the soldiers call him, finds that all men face and feel the same feelings and that it doesn't matter to the world what happens to him. Henry obviously finds that saddening but soon gets over and turns into a bit of a realist. He goes through a phase and soon he recognizes his own cowardice and egoism. He does a complete revelation by the end of the book from a self-absorbed person, to a well-rounded selfless person.
During the entirety of the story, the view of Henry's actions are always changing or developing. Henry quickly realizes that weariness, reiteration, and extraordinary dread and deaths that happens when you are in the military. He also finds that Jim Conklin is a reasonable model of what a man should be to an extent. Jim is confident and can claim his own shortcomings and weaknesses. Henry slowly corrects his way of what looks and acts like a certified man and finds that a significant amount of manliness identifies with someone's own mistakes and imperfections.
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Henry grew much larger in personality, character, and morals. Henry grew more as a person than any other character in ‘The Red Badge of Courage’ because, during the war, Henry ran toward a specific point where the soldiers would meet, he was very courageous during the wars and took the flag when the color guard died. And although the was cowardice at first, he was willing to sacrifice his life by the end. In chapter 8, henry came back to join the wounded after running away and pretended to have a wound. Henry felt guilty and ashamed that he didn't have a red badge of courage.
The main enemy of Henry as he continued to find fearlessness is the basic element of human instinct, the desire for self-safeguarding. Henry wants to live longer than anything else. The more you look at it, the more real and natural it seems. Obviously, the more Henry thinks about it, the more he is convinced that he is an Einstein stuck in a field full of ‘buffoons’. In chapter 7 it says, “He threw a pinecone at a jovial squirrel, and he ran with chattering fear. […] The youth felt triumphant at this exhibition. There was the law, he said. Nature had given him a sign. The squirrel, immediately upon recognizing danger, had taken to his legs without ado'. This shows that henry is trying to defend his actions. He is defending, and rightfully so, why he ran, its apart of human instincts to run in the face of danger.
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