Stephen Crane is a master at creating well-known realistic scenes of combat and death. Crane was a poor writer, who wrote some of the greatest novels of all time. Even though he lived a short life, he made sure to make something of it. Stephen was a courageous, anti-war writer. He used a lot of irony and descriptive pieces in his stories influenced by poverty. Stephen Crane was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1891. Crane was the youngest in a family of fourteen. He was among the first writers to rebel against genteel tradition, with its false romanticism and repression. Crane and some of his contemporaries were learning to distrust what society had taught and accepted. “Let something become a tradition and it becomes a half-lie” (Sufrin 5). His desire to write was inspired by his family. In nearly three years of poverty, Crane had written four impressive and highly original books: "Maggie," "The Black Riders," "The Red Badge of Courage" and "George's Mother." Stephen Crane started out as a comic book writer. One of his techniques, which informs his best stories and novels, was parody. Crane's poetry, for the most part, was devoted to the metaphysical problems raised by man's relationship with his god. His fiction, on the other hand, depicts a man struggling to survive in society. The dominant tone in Crane's fiction was humorous, ironic, serious, and self-conscious. Crane began his graduate studies in 1888 at the Hudson River Institute and Claverack College, a military school that fueled his interest in "The Red Badge of Courage." By the end of the first semester, Cranes had only received four of his seven classes, and two of them were failing. The other three were not noted because he never attended the middle of the play. I seem to feel, beneath the mirth and absurdity, a terrible hatred of the opinion of the masses, a fervent faith in the individual's right to live” (Garland 56). “One of America's most influential writers, Stephen Crane, produced works that have been credited with laying the foundation for modern American naturalism. His Civil War novel, “The Red Badge of Courage,” realistically depicts the psychological complexities of emotions on the battlefield and has become a classic of American literature” (“Stephen Crane”…). “At the end of Stephen Crane's life, literally on his deathbed, he returned to pure parody” (Soloman 12). Crane lived in poverty but that did not stop him from writing. He was a courageous man and his life was strictly devoted to writing. Such an approach to Stephen Crane's fiction could make him appear as a negative artist, a critic rather than a creator..