25. Reviews of Literaty Criticisms

Alright, before I get started on the commentation of the two literary reviews of The Red Badge of Courage, I think it is best I give my own. Personally, I did not like the book at all. There is no way anyone could get me to read this book on my own. Now since I had to read it for school, I did not really have a choice and just had to bear with it. But come on, it was a slow moving, basically a documentary, story about war. I know for some people war might be a very interesting thing for them to read about, but most certainly it is not interesting to me in the slightest. While I support soldiers for what they do for our country, yadda, yadda, I would really rather not read about it.
Okay, so, the two literary criticisms that Mr. Langley gave our class to read about The Red Badge of Courage were extremely lengthy and hard to concentrate on. However, while they were hard to read, when you finally did concentrate hard enough to read the information in them, they actually had some good, useful information. My favorite part from either of the reviews was this:"Surprisingly little has been made of the fact that Henry's "wound," the red badge of "courage" which marks the turning point in his character development, comes neither from the enemy nor even from a random unidentifiable bullet: it comes from one of his own men, a soldier fleeing wildly, as Henry did, and who perceives Henry as merely another opposing force, another competitor. In this pivotal moment, Henry is attempting to communicate; however, he cannot see that his attempt has only one meaning in the lexicon of men each battling for his own survival: he is a threat to the soldier. And as a consequence, Henry receives the one response which makes sense: the man floors him with a single, vicious blow from his rifle-used, by a man in his most primitively competitive frame of mind, as a club."
I like this because I agree with it alot. Before Henry got what I would consider a wake up call, when the man hit him in the head with the butt of his rifle, he was not serious about the war. It seemed like after this happened is when things started getting better, like the bit from the review points out.