Stephen Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage without ever having witnessed combat. However, his use of vivid imagery, color motifs, and his ability to describe the emotional highs and lows of an insecure soldier have earned the novel many accolades.
"With this conviction came a store of assurance. He felt a quiet manhood, nonassertive but of sturdy and strong blood... He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was but the great death. He was a man."
Fearful; insecure; ashamed and guilty; wants to find his courage and become a man