Red Badge of Courage: Chapters 1-8

Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage is a novel of the Realistic period in literature. The novel demonstrates exactly what the thoughts of this period were; The writing style is very descriptive and focuses on realistic events in the everyday life of a civil war soldier. Throughout the story, Crane uses more psychological events than actual events. When actual events are used, they are only to give the main character, Henry, something to react to psychologically. One example of such an event would be Henry's going into the army. After this happens Henry is faced with nervousness about how he will react in battle. Will he run? Will he fight? He won't know until he enters the field of battle. And yet he poses the question to himself constantly. Then to others. He basically overworks himself over it. In the end he fights, but then later in battle runs away as many others around him are fleeing.

Some may classify this as realism for it's dry and boring style of writing. I would happen to be one of these people. We haven't read much Realism in our class yet, but this book, so far, has caused paradigms in my mind about this period in American literature. The book is very boring in my opinion, and I can't force myself to sit and read it like I am able to do with most other books. It's the sort of book that I need to read a little bit of at a time, and this process is foreign to me. I, therefore, retain much less knowledge of the story from one sitting to the next. It is a complex psychological story which is even less beneficial for my remembering of the story.

When first attempting to read this novel I only took in the actual events that Henry's regiment faced. Somehow, my mind filtered out all of the psychological aspects of the story. As I have previously stated, not many events transpired in these first chapters. This may have contributed to my boredom while reading.