"An Episode of War"

Stephen Crane's short story "An Episode of War" is a brief account of a lieutenant getting shot and the reactions of the people around him. Crane is very meticulous in his explicit description of the situation. We were required to read his piece because of its alleged usage of Realism and Naturalism. The Realism in this work is not difficult to notice; at no point in the story is anything described in a particularly subjective way. Moreover, none of the characters attempt to extrapolate upon or find greater meaning in any of the sparse events. The only Naturalistic aspect that I notice about this piece, however, is in the lack of "higher power" philosophies. In a way, I suppose that could be considered Naturalism, but I'm mainly taking Mr. Cook's word for it. On an unrelated note, I found the ending darkly hilarious.

--Wald der Gemein