He had, of course, dreamed of battles all his life-of vague and bloody conflicts that had thrilled him with theirr sweep and fire. In visions he had seen himself in any struggles. He had imagined peoples secure in the shadow of his eagle-eyed prowess. But awake he had regarded battles as crimson blotches on the pages of the past. He had put them as things of the bygone with his thought-images of heavy crowns and high castles. There was a portion of the world's history which he had regarded as the time of wars, but it, he thought, had been long gone over the horizon and had disappeared forever.
For a young man like Henry, war is something mysterious, exciting, and horrible. He has an contradictory attitude towards the war-eager for battle or peace, which is one of the themes Stephen Crane intends to express in this book. For those soldiers, they are eager for battle which may bring them glory at the very beginning. However, once they experience the cruelty and bloodiness of the war, the feeling of fear will emerge. Crane has never been to the battle fields, however, the soldiers in his novel are quiet vivid.
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