Journal #24 - Red Badge of Courage 9-20

In chapters nine through twenty of the Red Badge of Courage, Crane represents realism in many different ways. He represents a realist hero during this portion of the book because of the changes that occur to Henry. During the beginning of the book I have noticed that Henry was an immature teenager who thought that he was indestructible. After he runs away from the battles during the previous sections in the book, he gets a chance to redeem himself in these chapters. What he does is he ends up firing his weapon wildly into the enemy, which then his captain considers Henry a war machine. This boosts Henry's confidence even though he really had not done anything too heroic. At this point, Henry regains his indestructible thoughts, but now he is much more responsible which how he thinks. He ends up gaining the confidence to run out in the midst of battle and grab the flag and wave it around. I do not like how he acts towards Wilson during this part of the story because he is very rude to Wilson and almost competes to be more patriotic than Wilson is. I think this is not good because this is not a good way to be patriotic. The qualities of a realist hero also ties into the human nature aspect that Realism represents. These traits of guilt and taking advantage of the events to better your situation are real traits of real people, and this is why they represent Realism. I think that because these actions are so natural to humans, it gives credibility to the story as well as giving the characters a realistic touch. The author does not mention religion very much in this story, which is fitting to the realistic writting styles. Imagery is a big part of the figurative language that takes place in this novel. The fighting scenes are described very vividly to were you feel as if you are there.