Red Badge of Courage The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane is a book based on a young soldier engaging in the civil war. The psychological conflict that he faces throughout the story is both internal and external. The battles are fought in the readers face to show the young soldiers' conflict with himself, other soldiers and the battle itself. With Stephen Cranes amazing power of description, the reader becomes engulfed in the battle at hand and feels that the conflicts of the soldiers are becoming his own. The descriptions in which Crane uses in this novel, is what truly makes it the remarkable book it is. The main topic of the book is fear and how it would affect a young man in