To start of the Red Badge of Courage their was a little bit of figurative language that i quickly picked out. "He was like a carpenter who has made many boxes, making still another box, only there was furious haste in his movements" (Crane 493). So to put this use of figurative language into a simpler form, the author was just trying to say that he was getting a task done extremely fast that he had done before.
The Red Badge of Courage was an interesting story to read, to say the least. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane was about a man that has some anger issues, and he for some reason does not know how to control these issues very well. I thought it was just kind of weird how in this story this psycho man went from just working or doing something to being extremely angry. As I kept reading Crane's weird words I saw the what happens to this man when he gets angry. He finally breaks it down for us and helps us understand a little better just what is going on in this guys crazy mind and body. "Presently he began to feel the effects of the war atmosphere - a blistering sweat, a sensation that his eyeballs were about to crack like hot stones. A burning roar filled his ears. Following this came a red rage. He developed the acute exasperation of a pestered animal, a well-meaning cow worried by dogs. He had a mad feeling against his rifle, which could only be used against one life at a time.... His impotency appeared to him, and made his rage into that of a driven beast. Buried in the smoke of many rifles his anger was directed not so much against the men whom he knew were rushing toward him A against the swirling battle phantoms which were choking him, stuffing their smoke robes down his parched throat" (Crane 493).
I really did not know quite what to think after i read this passage. This guy did some weird things when he got mad, and he turned into some crazy things. I did realize that this was obviously under the category of realism. The story is depicting this guys life, and the author Stephen Crane is trying to show the crazy emotions of this psycho guy. Not only did I pick up a lot of realism things in this passage, but I also picked up a hint of naturalism. "Naturalist authors were largely interested in maintaining Darwin's suppositions that human beings were soulless creatures..bereft of free will, whose mannerisms and behavior resulted primarily from their heredity and the influences of a capricious environment" (Sommers). I did pick up some similarities from both this definition and The Red Badge of Courage. I really thought that this character was a soulless, crazy person. I mean this guy goes from just being a little angry at something and before you know it he is going crazy and acting like a beast or something. I mean that is not something that you read about a lot or even see for that matter. He was different from most people, being that he could not control his anger or his tempers. He was just doing whatever he wanted, and his anger it was showed us that he fits underneath the naturalist category also.
Crane, Stephen. "from The Red Badge of Courage." American Literature Textbook. Columbus: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 493. Print.
Sommers, Joseph Michael. "Naturalism." In Maunder, Andrew. Facts On File Companion to the British Short Story. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Feb 16, 2011.
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