 Finding solace in existential thoughts, he internally fights to make sense of the senseless world in which he finds himself.When he seems to come to terms with his situation, he is yet again forced into the fears of battle, which threaten to strip him of his enlightened identity.Joseph Hergesheimer wrote in his introduction to the 1925 Knopf edition of the novel that, at its heart, "The Red Badge of Courage" was a "story of the birth, in a boy, of a knowledge of himself and of self-command."