People, Places, and Things

I never realized, and maybe I never took the time, as a younger girl that the one and only book all the boys were wrestling over was not just a war tale but a war tale that took place over...what, two maybe three days?  I’m not complaining, I simply thought it was more extensive or perhaps thorough, though I am glad it is not more than it is. 

Crane does a beautiful job of dealing extensively and singularly with the thoughts of one character and one character only.  Often I find that some writers keep in the general way of a singular character while tending to jump to another character and back to the main.  I do not recall once in the duration of The Red Badge of Courage that Crane moves from the thoughts of Henry Fleming.  Anything outside of Henry is noted and thoughts are assumed of others in their appearances and mannerisms but never from their perspective.  Crane also does not name his characters until necessary, which leaves the whole thing vague and again, focused entirely on the thoughts of Henry Fleming. 

The change in Fleming is immediate, and it caught me off guard.  One minute you have a frightened youth, the next you have a blood-thirsty war mongrel.  I feel like I missed the part he became a man, though he doesn’t claim himself as one until the end.  There is a strange religiousness to the war (…battle?) according to Henry Fleming.  In running, he spends the rest of the time, in a way, paying penance for his fleeing the fight—for failing to fulfill the role of the heroes of the Greek epics he so praises.  When he does fulfill the role he builds up in his mind, still he is haunted by the ghost of yesterday.  In addition to religious imagery, there is industry/mechanical imagery to the war. 

I don’t really know what all the implications of these things would be, but I would certainly like to discuss that further in class.  I’ll come with the selections bookmarked.