The Red Badge of Courage Chapters 1-8

One thing that I have realized while starting the book is that Stephen Crane is very discriptive. He describes the battle scenes and it makes you feel as if you can see the generals commanding their troops, the smell of sweat, and hear the guns going off in rapid fire. All the things that come on a battlefield, are distinctly described in the first eight chapters. Another thing that he puts in along with all the "senses" descriptions is his own thoughts on the matter of war. I have heard about the Civil War and read about it at school, but it was cool to get to see the war from the perspective of a young man/boy was one that I have never read about.
One thing that makes this story a story from the Realism time period is that the definition of a hero is similar to the Realism period hero. A Realism hero is an ordinary man that is put in an extraordinary situations. I think that that is exactly what is going on it Stephen Crane's book. Henry (the youth in the book) is an ordinary kid that works on his parents' farm and is trying to be a war hero, which is definitely not ordinary. It said in the book that when he was in Washington, people cheered for him because of his uniform that he was wearing. He was a war hero, even before he went to war. The type of government was that of the United States government. Multiple times throughout the book the regiment complained because they were being moved from place to place without seeing any fighting action. They were basically all pieces in a game of chess that the United States government was using. All the soldiers were following government orders and that was about it. The American Dream was to end or finish the war. To be a hero. At this time in history, America was divided, and there hope and dream was to bo united again.