Red Badge of Courage Dialectical Journal

Passage | Page | Response | "The Cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors. It cast its eyes upon the roads, which were growing from long troughs of liquid mud to proper thoroughfares. A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army’s feet; and at night, when the stream hand become of sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red , eyelike gleam of hostile campfires set in the low brows of distant hills.” | 1 | The novel opens up with different impressions of the environment. In this passage Stephen Crane strongly uses mood and naturalism to help the reader visualize his depiction of the novel’s current setting. The stream is described as “sorrowful blackness” which instills a bleak and dreary feeling while you read. The army is called “it” which was awakening. The river is described as “amber-tinted” like as if it was tainted by soldiers’ blood. The figurative language used in the passage to describe the weather such as “retiring fogs” and “cold passed reluctantly” feels like description of the soldiers’ emotion. | "Near the threshold he stopped, horror-stricken at the sight of a thing. He was being looked at by a dead man who was seated with his back against a columnlike tree. The corpse was dressed in a uniform that had once been blue, but was now faded to a melancholy shade of green. The eyes, staring at the youth, had changed to the dull hue to be seen on the side of a dead fish. The mouth was open. Its red had changed to an appalling yellow. Over the gray skin of the face ran little ants. One was trundling some sort of bundle along the upper lip.” | 46 | The image placed in your mind of his uniform slowly transforming over time from an outfit of pride and prominence to one that was worn out and no longer in use. By comparing the eyes