How Did Crane Use Descriptive Language In The Red Badge Of Courage

1. The critics of the novel all agreed that Crane had taken a new and “fresh” approach to writing about the war and those soldiers in the war. This had been done through the strong depiction of the settings and situations that those in the novel had gone through. One critic specifically said Crane is “a great artist,” meaning he was able to use his words to effectively make the story within the novel feel more real than most other authors of this time.

2. Crane’s writing gives a feeling that is significantly more realistic to the reader by his use of extremely descriptive language. General Pleasonton also used descriptive language but this was a much more broad description than Crane, who described each event in deep detail, giving the reader

the feeling that they were witnessing the events first hand rather than looking in from the outside, like Pleasonton did.
3. When Boyer says “the thickest of the fight,” he is likely referring to the middle of the battlegrounds, where the most conflict is arising. From Boyer stating that he felt a relief when he saw his brother and friend approaching him, it can be inferred that it was not uncommon for someone to lose their life there.
4. In Chapter 13 of The Red Badge of Courage, Crane describes the surroundings of a young man in flames and “sleeping” men all over the ground around him. This description gives support for Boyer’s outlook on the “thickest of the fight” and how rare it was for one to being in the midst of that. There was very few left alive and those he met even had a sense of surprise when seeing that the young man was alive as well.
5. The military strategy that is described in the writing is one that has the military vehicles focus more on finding their place and waiting there for their opposition to approach. They had been positioned all around Hazel Grove, and as the opposition confronted where they were set up, their artillery was “ready to open before the enemy fired a shot.” This preparation was to avoid not being prepared when their enemy arrives.
6. In Chapter 12 of the The Red Badge of Courage, Crane describes a different element of the battle. He wrote of the cannons being blasted from the opposition through dark smoke and “waves” of hundreds of men running through the open fields out of where the smoke was. He describes the battlegrounds in a way that sounds horrifying and this is to give the reader the image of the chilling setting the author was in and also explain to the reader why one would have responded as he did.
7.

The two passages have a different effect on the reader because they describe different aspects of the battle. Crane’s description gives a vivid image of the setting and allows the reader to almost feel the fear one may feel having been in the battle. The description of the battle in The Artillery at Hazel Grove is much less descriptive than Crane’s and does not give as much of an appalling image as that in The Red Badge of Courage.

8. In Gordon’s account he described an order to him that was severely misunderstood due to the unreliable communication between superiors and their generals. He did not understand why he had gotten this order, but because of his duty to obey the orders given, he carried out what he believed to be what was asked of him. It was incorrectly interpreted because of poor communication yet did not cost him his job/reputation because he successfully overtook an important territory.

9. In Chapter 17 of The Red Badge of Courage, Crane uses feelings and emotions to describe one of the attacks the soldier went through. Using the phrase “he began to fume with rage and exasperation” gives the reader a good description of the personal mindset of the soldier and how the environment shifted his mentality. This can also be seen in the description as the soldier “scowled with hate at the swirling smoke that was approaching like a phantom flood.” This hatred relates solely to the trepidation the soldiers felt within their surroundings of the

battle.
10.

The third paragraph of Chapter 1 of The Red Badge of Courage and the passage resemble one another by both describing the setting of an event the soldier witnessed from the perspective of someone looking in on the event. Both write about the actions of other men rather than of themselves, and this gives the reader the visual that is disconnected from the plot of the story itself.

11. In the paragraph from The Red Badge of Courage, the author used much more detailed description of the men he was observing. With the use of phrases such as “scattered into small arguing groups between rows of squat brown huts” gives a very detailed image of what the author witnessed. This description is much stronger than that of the passage, which uses more broad descriptions of the soldiers actions, such as “rushed” and “set about.”

12. A day in the life in the red badge of courage ages was not necessarily, pleasant. It was rather troublesome for most people. War is a very violent, unforgiving occurrence, that takes pity on no man or woman. Gunshots firing off in the background, and children not being able to go outside freely because of all the violence going on around them. Even waking up in the morning was a bit of a struggle, knowing that we dont have much to eat at all for the large family of 6 we

have.
13. Crane was very well able to communicate a realistic picture of the soldier’s experience in battle by successfully using very descriptive language that presented an image in the reader’s mind on the setting and sequence of events within the battle. Without this lifelike representation of the battle the reader would not have been as able to visualize what the soldier had been experiencing at the time.