History in Stephen Crane

   

     Stephen Crane wrote a story called "The Red badge of Courage" which we had to read in Pod #3. I really enjoyed the story, I won't explain a lot of it since the class already read it but I thought it was a good story to show the history of war. Throughout most of the story the main character Henry is in a war but constantly keeps running away from his duties and anything he is afraid of. Not only that but he also lies to the soldiers on his side about how he got certain wounds and how he escaped certain situations. As it progresses though, Henry starts doing what he is there to do and ends up being a really good soldier.
    I think this story demonstrates how people feel in actual war. Not only in the past, but todays wars also. War is a scary activity that has been a common form of mankind since weapons were made and I think it would be weird not to be afraid of war. This story shows how people have to constantly face their fears even if they don't want to be there. The story just made me think how people in an actual war environment would react to certain situations. That is why I think this story correlates to history.
    

Personification in Poems

     Since we are reading poems in Pod four right now, I thought I would make a post describing one of the new poets I have discovered this week. Carl Sandburg has three poems in our literature book that we had a choice of reading, and I am glad that I chose to read his work. The three poems I read from him were "Chicago", "Fog", and "Grass", Each of them have a similar theme to one another in that each of them are personified to either a human or an animal.
     Each of the poems are entertaining are descriptive. "Chicago" and "Grass" are both given human characteristics to describe their roles and what they offer to the world. While "Fog" is given personalities of a cat instead of a person. Even though two of the three poems are really short, the way they are described explains a lot more than what is written. I just think the way the stories were written were really unique and something different from the usual writing styles. Out of the three poems from Sandburg, my favorite was "Fog". I just thought his description of fog compared to a cat made a lot of since and I could see how he made his comparisons. What was your favorite out of the three poems from Sandburg?

  

The Writing of Bret Harte

     Bret Harte was defiantly my favorite writer out of the men writers from the first week of class. There were plenty of other writers out of the selection that I also enjoyed, but Harte's stories re just more interesting to me. Specifically, his story "The Outcasts of Poker Flat". It is a good and interesting story from beginning to end and Harte puts an incredible amount of detail into the story.
      Harte keeps the characters in the story limited which I like in stories. If there are to many characters I either can't remember who is who or I just stop caring about a certain person. Keeping the characters limited was a good move because it makes the story move by smoother for the reader. Harte describes settings and detail very well in this story. I was able to picture the story from beginning to end and not have to leave a lot to imagination. Harte is definitely a very talented writer from his time. "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" is my favorite story from him that I have read so far and one that I would recommend to anyone.