Journal #24 9-20 Red Badge

Chapters 9-20 also have many realism qualities. Henry shows a perfect example of Human nature when he continues to ponder how he can return to camp with a good enough excuse for his retreat that the other men will accept him. He worries over this constantly until he finally returns after being hit on the head with a rifle by a retreating comrade. He tells everyone that he has been shot and they believe him. This is his way of showing the men he was not a coward and they accept him back to his explanation of being separated from them and fighting on the right flank. Henry also shows human nature by complaining about how he feels the commanding officers are not skilled enough for their jobs. He blames them for the army's continual defeats which is very common for someone to do, people often blame their superiors. He also shows anger when he becomes aware that essentially, his regiment is just being chased by the rebels like kittens being chased by boy. He begins to really hate the rebel army and takes it out on them during their next skirmish. During the next fight, he fights ferociously and helps to fight the rebel army back.

Personification is used when Crane (the author) says phrases such as, The sun shone his light upon the field. The importance here is in the three words, sun shone his. He is making the sun sound human-like by making it male. in the english language the sun is gender neutral, Crane bypasses this by giving it a male pronoun which makes it less neutral, and more human.

Government is still commanded through the officers in the army. They still give the orders to the regular soldiers and the soldiers follow them. Without the officers to give their orders, their would be mass pandemonium and chaos on the battlefields. The amount of confusion that would be added to the battlefield if their were no officers or men to take charge would be incredible. EVerything would be much more confusing and things such as friendly fire or mass groups of men fighting without leaders to guide them.