Read the excerpts from The Red Badge of Courage. In the first excerpt, Henry Fleming is fighting in his first battle. In the sec
ond excerpt, Henry is deserting his regiment. Excerpt 1:
Perspiration streamed down the youth’s face, which was soiled like that of a weeping urchin. He frequently, with a nervous movement, wiped his eyes with his coat sleeve. His mouth was still a little ways open.
He got the one glance at the foe-swarming field in front of him, and instantly ceased to debate the question of his piece being loaded. Before he was ready to begin—before he had announced to himself that he was about to fight—he threw the obedient well-balanced rifle into position and fired a first wild shot. Directly he was working at his weapon like an automatic affair.
Excerpt 2:
To the youth it was an onslaught of redoubtable dragons. He became like the man who lost his legs at the approach of the red and green monster. He waited in a sort of a horrified, listening attitude. He seemed to shut his eyes and wait to be gobbled.
A man near him who up to this time had been working feverishly at his rifle suddenly stopped and ran with howls. A lad whose face had borne an expression of exalted courage, the majesty of he who dares give his life, was, at an instant, smitten abject. He blanched like one who has come to the edge of a cliff at midnight and is suddenly made aware. There was a revelation. He, too, threw down his gun and fled. There was no shame in his face. He ran like a rabbit.
Others began to scamper away through the smoke. The youth turned his head, shaken from his trance by this movement as if the regiment was leaving him behind. He saw the few fleeting forms.
Which quotation shows the effect of Henry’s changed perspective?
“Perspiration streamed down the youth’s face, which was soiled like that of a weeping urchin.”
“. . . he threw the obedient well-balanced rifle into position and fired a first wild shot.”
“He blanched like one who has come to the edge of a cliff at midnight and is suddenly made aware.”
“The youth turned his head, shaken from his trance by this movement as if the regiment was leaving him behind.”
