Dear Mrs. Zrihen,
I am reading the book The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. This is an historical fiction book set in the American Civil War.
Here is a quote that I liked from the story on pages one and two:
A very little boy stood upon a heap of gravel for the honor of Rum alley. He was throwing stones at howling urchins from Devil’s Row, who were circling madly about the heap and pelting him.
His infantile countenance was livid with the fury of battle. His small body was writhing in the delivery of oaths.
“Run, Jimmie, run! Dey’ll git yehs!” screamed a retreating Rum Alley child.
“Naw,” responded Jimmie with a valiant roar, “dese mugs can’t make me run.”
Howls of renewed wrath went up from Devil’s Row throats. Tattered gamins on the right made a furious assault on the gravel heap. On their small convulsed faces shone the grins of true assassins. As they charged, they threw stones and cursed in shrill chorus.
The little champion of Rum Alley stumbled precipitately down the other side. His coat had been torn to shreds in a scuffle and his hat was gone. He had bruises on twenty parts of his body, and blood was dripping from a cut on his head. His was features looked like those of a tiny insane demon. On the ground, children from Devil’s Row closed in on their antagonist. He crooked his left arm defensively about his head and fought with madness. The little boys ran to and fro, dodging, hurling stones, and swearing in barbaric trebles.
From a window of an apartment-house that uprose from amid squat ignorant stables there leaned a curious woman. Some laborers unloading a scow at a dock at the river, paused for a moment and regarded the fight. The engineer of a passive tug-boat hung lazily over a railing and watched. Over on the island a worm of yellow convicts came from the shadow of a grey ominous building and crawled slowly along the river bank.
A stone had smashed in Jimmie’s mouth. Blood was bubbling over his chin and down his ragged shirt. Tears made furrows on his dirt-stained cheeks. His thin legs had begun to tremble and turn weak, causing his small body to reel. His roaring curses of the first part of the fight had changed to a blasphemous chatter.
What I enjoyed about this passage was the vivid description of the violence. This passage is significant because without this passage the story would be even harder to understand.
My two before reading strategies were to skim and scan and read the synopsis. My two during reading strategies were relate the language in the story to modern language and to find and understand with context clues the meaning of vocabulary words. My tow after reading strategies were to remember I read and prepare for Reader’s Journal.
The genre of this book is historical fiction. The characteristic of the genre is a story set during an historical time.
The characters of the book so far are Jimmie, his parents and his sister. The protagonist is Jimmie and the antagonist has not been shown yet. The setting of the story so far is a city that hasn’t been named yet along a river. One text feature I noticed was on page fifteen. There is a picture of where Stephen Crane grew up on Mulberry Place.
The exposition is during the fight between the Devil’s Row and Rum Alley kids. It always seems the Rum Alley kids lose. The rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion I haven’t gotten up to yet. The tone of this book is serious and the point of view is third person. The pattern of organization is cause and effect because the cause is Jimmie doing something bad and the effect is him paying the price. The author’s purpose for writing the book is obviously to entertain the reader. The author’s perspective is biased because it shows a little bit of his own personal feelings by using vivid descriptions.
I would rate this book a four out of ten so far because I have not enjoyed the book that much and it’s hard for me to understand. I would recommend this book to somebody in college because the kids in college know how to understand this book better. It is a much higher level than a middle school book.
Sincerely,
Michael Heskiel
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