Read the passage from The Red Badge of Courage. Answer the question that follows.
He had, of course, dreamed of battles all his life—of vague and bloody conflicts that had thrilled him with their sweep and fire. In visions he had seen himself in many struggles. He had imagined peoples secure in the shadow of his eagle-eyed prowess. But awake he had regarded battles as crimson blotches on the pages of the past. He had put them as things of the bygone with his thought-images of heavy crowns and high castles. There was a portion of the world's history which he had regarded as the time of wars, but it, he thought, had been long gone over the horizon and had disappeared forever.
Why did the author choose the word "blotches" to describe battles?
To emphasize the excitement and enjoyment the protagonist felt towards battles
To suggest that battles were messy and left a stain on history
To convey that battles were a thing of the past and nothing to worry about
To symbolize power and authority associated with battles
The correct answer is:
To suggest that battles were messy and left a stain on history.