Noise and Silence Theme Analysis

From popping musketry to the belching of artillery explosions to the "devotional silence" of the woods, Red Badge gets much of its descriptive power from its descriptions of sound. The noises of battle give the reader a soldier's point of view and do more than just describe war: they convey the intensely disorienting experience that battle must have been for soldiers on the ground. For a low-ranking infantryman like Henry, noise is his only news of the battle. The narrative describes explosions as the armies communicating with each other. All this noise overwhelms Henry and he can't understand what's going on: a metaphor for the chaos and senselessness of war. On the other hand, silence is golden. When "the loud young soldier" Wilson matures from his empty boastfulness, he quiets down. The story ends with Henry yearning for "soft and eternal peace"—the end of noise and war altogether.