The red badge of courage study guide answers

The Red Badge of Courage Questions (13 questions)
Subject
Humanities

Question Description
1. "Something new." "Never been guessed before." "A very fresh note." The critics agreed there was something different going on here. Many books about war, some quite realistic, had already been written.

Describe what was fresh in Crane's approach to writing about war.

The Red Badge of Courage and First-Hand Accounts of War
First Person
Locate a brief passage (about a paragraph in length) from The Red Badge of Courage that describes a battle scene with much confusion. Contrast it with the following third-person passage from The Successes and Failures of Chancellorsville by General Alfred Pleasonton, from "The Century Illustrated Monthly" Magazine, May 1886 to October 1886 Pleasonton's account—like Crane's—is action-packed and quite specific. Its perspective, however, is wider and it is written in the third person.

Shots were fired at hazard in every direction. The First and Third Virginia regiments, no longer recognizing each other, charge upon each other mutually; Stuart's mounted men, generally so brave and so steadfast, no longer obey the orders of their officers, and gallop off in great disorder. At last quiet is restored, and the brigade finally reaches Spotsylvania Court House, while the small band which has caused so much alarm to Stuart was quietly retiring to Chancellorsville.
*2. Which passage below comes closest to giving the reader the feeling he is actually experiencing the event? In what ways?

A Blow-by-Blow Description
Locate a brief passage (about a paragraph) from The Red Badge of Courage that offers a blow-by-blow description of events in a battle. Contrast it with the letter from Peter Boyer to his father, written sometime in May 1863, which summarizes the letter this way: "Boyer provides a description of the Chancellorsville battle in Virginia." Boyer relates an experience that happened in "the thickest of the fight."