Teamwork in “The Red Badge of Courage”

Throughout two books, “The Red Badge of Courage”, and “The Call of The Wild”, teamwork is often used. In the book “The Red Badge of Courage” there are a group of boys who get enlisted into the army. Since the group is going into war, they are going to need to work together in order to live. When tough things happen, or a challenge comes towards these boys, they fight together and protect each other. Even though these are simply two stories about war and a dog, teamwork is used throughout them. In everyday life, teamwork is not used as often as it should be used. These books encourage readers to use teamwork as demonstrated in these books.

In the book “The Red Badge of Courage”, there are a group of boys that enlist in the army and show throughout the book how strong teamwork can be. “The Red Badge of Courage” demonstrates that men can accomplish a lot when working together. “They were continuously bending in a coaxing posture over their guns. They seemed to be patting them on the back and encouraging them…”(Pg. 54). This quote proves that the groups of men were always together, no matter what. They encouraged each other to do better and helped each other with anything.

The second point is that teamwork is very important, especially when someone gets hurt or majorly injured in battle. “At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be particularly happy.”(Pg.54). This quote proves that war changes people. When in war, your body starts to change, so does your mind as well. You have to constantly think of strategies in order to succeed. These men were constantly going through changes for witnessing their friends die and get majorly injured. Some soldiers get happy when others are wounded, just in order to get the Medal of Honor. Sometimes soldiers get wounded and some don’t help them, others help as much as they can. In this book, teamwork would be amazing due to being in a war with others.

In the book “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London, a group of dogs work together to help the main dog “Buck” join the wild with them. He had no other place to go, but the other animals helped him feel wanted to once. “For the pride of trace and trail was his, and sick unto death, he could not bear that another dog should do his work.”(Chapter.4). This shows how the dogs would do stuff for each other, especially hard and nasty tasks. Even though Bucks owner was still alive and making Buck not feel wanted, he had friends who had helped him feel wanted even though Buck was going through a terrible time. All Buck wanted to do was escape the prison he was being tortured in and be with the wild.

After the main dog’s owner dies, he goes with his pack to the wild, and his pack helps him with a lot of things. “Love, genuine passionate love, was his for the first time.” (Chapter.6). This quote proves that Buck was finally cared for, and he felt wanted for once in his life. Buck had finally felt the things he deserved every since he was born, which made him very excited and he was very happy about this as well. Buck all his life was abused and mistreated. When his owner died he was upset about it, but he had finally felt love from the others that he had been a friend with. Buck had finally felt wanted for his life, which is what he needed.

Throughout these two books, teamwork is important; they demonstrate how it can be beneficial in numerous ways, leading readers to see how it is important in every day life. People in everyday life do not use teamwork because of race, color or multiple terrible reasons. Some people actually use teamwork without judging these other people because of their race and color. Those are the people you as a reader want to be able to do and/ or hang out with them as a friend. Even though teamwork is not used as much as it should be in everyday life, hopefully these two books and this paper will convince readers to step up and work together.

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