Hollow Be Thy Name

I am fascinated by the religious images going on in Red Badge. Did you talk about this in your meeting?

The first one I found was ch.3: "They were going to look at war, the red animal--war, the blood-swollen god." Followed by "the brigade was halted in the cathedral light of a forest. The busy skirmishers were still popping. Through the aisles of the wood could be seen..."

Did this image remind you of alters? "During this halt many men in the regiment began erecting tiny hills in front of them. They used stones, sticks, earth and anything..."

Later: "The youth had been taught that a man became another thing in a battle. He saw his salvation in such a change."

Henry begins to think differently about this "religious" endeavor, in chapter 6: "The slaves toiling in the temple of this god began to feel rebellion at his harsh tasks."

In chapter 7, the harsh, unrelenting Nature seems to have joined forces with War. Or maybe they are one and the same..."At length he reached a place where the high, arching boughs made a chapel. He softly pushed the green doors aside and entered. Pine needles were a gentle brown carpet. There was a religious half light." But he finds in this chapel a dead man, rotting and terrifying. As Henry tries to retreat, Nature itself holds him captive: "The branches, pushing against him, threatened to throw him over upon it. His unguided feet, too, caught aggravatingly in brambles; and with it all he recieved a subtle suggestion to touch the corpse." He runs..."The trees about the portals of the chapel moved soughingly in a soft wind. A sad silence was upon the little gaurding edifice."

The next chapter begins with the same metaphors: The trees singing hymns, the insects bow, making devotional pause, the trees chant choruses.

Chapter 17, he realizes he has joined forces with this blood-swollen god: "He had been a barbarian, a beast. He had fought like a pagan who defends his religion." And chapter 23, "he himself felt the daring spirit of a savage religion-mad."

In the last chapter, in which he is reflecting on his war experiences, the text says, "He found that he could look back upon the brass and bombast of his earlier gospels and see them truly. He was gleeful when he discovered that he now despised them."