The Red Badge of Courage and McTeague:Passage to Modernity

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The author of this piece of writing J.C. Levenson first pointed out that “Convenience of remembering is often at odds with historical accuracy.” People like Stephen Crane and Frank Norris “illustrates the constant need for renewing historical inquiry.” By saying so， he exemplified that even living in the realism of literary history， these two writers weren’t bounded by the restriction of the so-called realism， since to them， there’s no ready-made formula.

Despite those conventional topics of what Crane and Norris shared， like narrative technique， subject matter and ideology， they two still had a good deal in common， such as birth and background， present circumstance， the way they lived， the audience they met， and the literary institutions they followed. What’s more， both of them paved new way for the followers by using their own way of exploring an inner space of psychic experience that an older generation was mostly not prepared to enter. They are frontiers rather than colonizers in their literary creation.

William Dean Howells， though much senior than they two， found common ground with the two in their having “explored radically fresh literary material， the newly populous， newly gigantic cities that by the 1890s dominated the American scene”. And he highly recommended their works as advanced level. As to Howells， he had always thought that the mission of realism is to place private lives in the context of current history， even though his own fictions were acceptable in the drawing-rooms， he could and was willing to accept the world beyond. Thus， he was happy to see the two writers practicing a realism which extended social awareness and widened the scope of realism.

If that’s the common ground they shared， there also exist a rift between Howells and Crane. A split between objective and subjective knowledge was called into question. At the verybeginning， Howells was fascinated by the “subjective” narrative and praised the heroic growth of Henry Fleming an unimagined one. Yet， as time passed by， Howells changed his mind and thought Crane just lost himself in a whirl of wild guesses， void of sufficient witness， for he had never engaged himself in a real battle. Further explanation was applied in a comparative way. Howells argued that the realist’s art transcribed an objective， rational Newtonian world； while Crane suggested the Newton’s optics was the convention that determined the shaping， and the readers should judge it from their own perspective， that is to say， with subjectivity. It was because Crane was disappointed by the accounts and existing records of the warfare， he made it up in his own way of perceiving or imagination. He probed into the plot of the novel by metonymy， which is “the power to guess the unseen from the seen， to trace the implication of things.” The subjectivity is so perfused that even the objective narrative revealed it. The description of the exterior circumstance， for instance. Both an impressionistic and expressionistic， Crane knowingly or not， made the boundary between the fluxional external and internal experience obscure by instability of perception. “To Howells， the world of chance was one that decent people had to reduce to order， and violence was an evil for which somebody must bear the blame. To Crane， chance was part of the order of things and violence could erupt into experience without a moral explanation.” Thus， Henry Fleming’s growth to Howells was an orderly evolution of character； to Crane， he wouldn’t agree with Howells that moral prudence derived from an “absolute and clear sense of proportion.” “Crane worked from a dynamic psychology whereby desire and will are no longer categorically set apart from each other and are no longer vassals of the judging reason.” Crane seemed to agree with what William James had put that the mind and body were as one， and the emotion without a body is nonentity. Therefore， the protagonist’s character was determined by his action. “ The crucial problem of narrative is to persuade readers that ‘he thought he wished’ does not induce the way he acts， and that watching his legs is the best means of discovering his merits or faults.”

In the nove The Red badge of courage， Crane developed the passage of his protagonist’s growth in a long-run； the courage he gradually acquired was not premeditated， deliberated， nor decided； and Crane’s pragmatic moral economy， “to err is human， and to forgive oneself is also human.” He held tight to these virtues like courage， loyalty， and grace under pressure. Howells’s criticize on his novel as a whirl of wild guesses wasn’t correct， for it is actually a frontier spirit which is beyond the probabilities of common life.

Norris differed from Crane in that he was much more of a reader than Crane， and he insisted that truth shouldn’t be contained in the circumscribed world， but be found meagerly. He held high the banal of average experience. To him， firstly， “the desire for stirring events and strong feelings in no way compromised his belief in accuracy.” And the claim for experience， for witness is a claim of detachment， of personal involvement， rather than a mere technical point of literary theory. On the other hand， in his description of bizarre feelings and lurid events， otherness became a means to candor.

Unlike Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage， Norris started from the relatively familiar and the literarily probable. His depiction was familiar to the reader. However， he managed to cloth and half-conceal an out-of-ordinary world. He intended to present his characters as sexual beings， yet he had a hard time finding the proper vocabulary. Norris allowed his protagonist to fall， and put the blame on moral condemnation， if not hereditary limitation， as the modern science should put it. “Hereditary alcoholism and hereditary brutality help to explain the plot， but even granting that the advanced ideas of the 1890s retain plausibility.” So the neat scientific explanation was far from enough to explain the issue than the changeable and unpredictable nature of human heart. mcteague’s fall was not totally hopeless， for the reader can feel for a moment or two； McTeague was like himself or herself， which was the author Norris’s intention for his protagonist. This instability of premise very much resembled Crane’s instability perception which created an unstable world of immense changes. Another resemblance with Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage in McTeague is his “being stupid got rid of the whole apparatus whereby reason judges desire and orders behavior.” To understand Norris’s psychopathology， one needs to be “other”， to stay clear of the given context and to witness the scene as a bystander. By racial stereotypes， this kind of otherness might as well be attested， as the case with the Latino maid and Zerkow. McTeague and his wife’s identity， or hereditary gene was also a sign for otherness， for their brutality and sin were the result of their marginalized ancestors.

“Degeneration， like progress， is a social process best seen in the reciprocal relations of interlocked lives.” McTeague failed to become a prosperous dentist because he had no license. In a down and out condition， his anger was ignited by his wife， who was losing herself as well after she won the lottery prize and who wanted to exercise conquest on her husband by giving him none. Although McTeague’s criminal deed angered the reader， there was still a last modicum of human dignity that allowed for pity and fear in McTeague’s last worldly possession—the caged bird. In this sense， the complication of human can be seen. A self when everything goes on well； another self when everything breaks up. “aggressiveness does not preclude vulnerability any more than brutishness precludes humanity.” “Headed for the fluid， unpredictable， and often dangerous world that has become familiar since their time”， both Crane and Norris initiated the psychological acuteness of the narrative in their writings.