Huck Finn Post 3

Huck's episode with the Grangerfords is very interesting due to it's melancholy mood, allusion to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and it's humor.
Although the story of Emmeline is supposed to be satirical, it is actually quite sad and depressing. The fact the the family "kept Emmeline's room trim and nice, and all the things fixed in it just the way she liked it" (Twain 106). Twain was making sattirical reference to the Victorian Age where everyone was facinated with death. Even though is is supposed to be mockery (a slight parody in fact), it is sad that the famly mourns over their relative so persistently. It is very eery and seems twisted. Also, another moment of sheer sadness is when Huck must cover Buck's dead body. " I cried a little when I was covering up Buck's face for he was mighty good to me" (Twain 117). Huck had grown so close to the young man and his family that to see them be torn apart and killed was a tremendous weigh tput on his conscience. Just the fact that Huck, a 13 or so year old boy, must deal with seeing so many people in his life killed is very depressing.
The Grangerfords also have an allusion of the classic romance play, Romeo and Juliet. Like in the tragic love story, Sophia falls in love Harney who is a member of the Grangerfords rival family, The Shepherdsons. Huck becomes involved when Miss Sophia asks him to go retrieve something from the chapel that she had left there. It turns out the book she left contained a note saying at what time they would meet to run away. Of couse, at the time that Huck read it he would never have guessed that is what the note was for or what it meant. Just like in Romeo and Juliet, the love of the two ends up creating a mess and ends with fatalities on both sides of the feuding fmilies. This time though, it ended not with the death of the lovers but of Hucks new friend Buck. "I judged I ought to told her father about that paper and the curious way she acted, and then maybe he would 'a' locked her up, and this awful mess woldn't ever happened" (Twain 116). It is sad that Huck bears the weight of his death on his conscience, but it can be understood why.
Moreover, the episodes with the Grangerfords bear many moments of pure humor. One such example being when Buck tries to shoot Harney and Buck then has to explain what a feud is the Huck. What is so funny about this is that when Huck tries to understand what the feud is about, he asks what caused the families to fight like such and all Buck can say is "I reckon maybe-I don't know" (Twain 110). The two families have been feuding for decades and multiple generations, but it has been so long that they currently do not know what they are fighting over. The don't even know who began the feud, but they have no problems continuing what they were taught and fighting the other family. It is comical that they have no problem killing mulitple members of each family but thy do not even bother to see whether what began the feud was even woth killing one person over. Another moment of comedy is when Buck begins to speak of how brave the Shepherdsons are. The wording in which he puts it is what makes is so funny. "...becuz they don't breed any of that kind" (Twain 111) makes it sound like he is admiring their courage and saying that tey have no panzies in their family, but he still hates them so much for a reason that he doesn't know!

Huck Finn Post #2

Huck and Jim have a very uncommon reletionship for a young, white male and a runaway slave. Their relationship is very close to the relationship a father and son possess. This can be seen through the way they talk and interact with one another.
In Chapter 14, there is a scene where Huck and Jim are sitting around telling one another stories. What is so unusual about this scene, a scene that can be viewed as typical father-son interaction, is that Huck plays the role of the father. Where the the father usually talks and tells the stories, Huck (the younger of the two) is the character trying to make Jim see the point of the fable of King Solomon. After Jim talks about how Solomon wasn't truly wise because he was going to cut a child in half, Huck says "But hang it, Jim, you've clean missed the point-blame it, you've missed it a thousand mile" (Twain 82). In the average father-son scenario, the father figure would be the one to explain why the child had missed the point. Here, Huck assumes the role of the father and tries to explain to Jim how it was just a test and Solomon wasn't actually going to cut the child in half, but like a child Jim is stubborn and refuses to change his mind on Solomon. This portion of the chapter depicts the paternal relations between Jim and Huck, but the way they act towards each other exeplifies it even more.
Throughout the whole novel so far, the way Jim and Huck act towards each other is very protective. Much like how a son works to protect his son, Jim protects Huck. A good example being when the two found the dead man in th floating house, Jim tells Huck "Come in, Huck, but doan' look at his face-it's too gashly" (Twain 57). This instinct to protect Huck from the grotesque thing in life is the same instinct that a father has to protect his son from any danger, whether physical or mental impurification. Not only does the way Jim act towards Huck protection wise display his fatherly affection towards him, his loving manner shows his paternal role in Hucks life on the river. When the Grangerfords start to fight and shoot, Jim thinks that Huck is in the middle of the dispute. Jim believe Huck to be dead, but when he learns that he is very much so alive his reaction portrays that of a worried father to his son. "...nothing ever sounded so good before. I run along the bank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me, he was so glad to see me" (Twain 117). The way Jim greets Huck is the way any parent would if they realized that their child was safe instead of whatever terrible thing they believed they were. Jim hugs him and tells Huck just how worried he was. This is one of the most parental moments in the book so far, and it just emphasizes the father-son relationship that Jim and Huck share even more.

Huck Finn Post #1

By the end of the tenth chapter, it is still difficult to have a a full opinion on Huck. Huck is a very complicated character to figure out. It is hard to decide whether or not I think he is a good kid or a complete rufian. Although it seems like Huck is quite dull, he is actually quite a witty young man and is very superstitious. Huck is also very much so a jokester, and he shows this through his interactions with the other characters.
Huck is a very sharp young boy. The way he decieves the town is one of the most brilliant plans I have ever read about. The way he "blooded up the ax good, and stuck it on the backside, and the ax in the corner" (Twain 41) was brilliant. He focused in on every detail of the murder, down to the blood dragged on the floor and the trail of grain leading to the river. He always compares himself to Tom Sawyer but in fact I think that he is just as brilliantly twisted and fantastic.
Superstition is not only something Huck believes in, but it is also a theme of the book. The book is heavily superstiious and with every page turn comes another superstition. In chapter 10 Huck mentions they also mention how looking at a new moon over your left shoulder is the worst luck possible. Jim also says that "the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snakeskin with my hands" (Twain 58). Huck and Jim even discuss just how bad of luck touching a snakeskin is. This also leads to Hucks' foolery at the end of Chapter 10.
When Huck kills a rattlesnake at the end beginning of Chapter ten and puts it at the foot of Jim's bed, he did not remember that the mate of the snake would come curl around the dead body. So "by night I (Huck) frogot all about the snake, and when Jim flung himself down on the blanket while I struck a light the snake's mate was there, and bit him" (Twain 59). This leads is technically the "fulfillment" of the bad luck from Huck touching a snakeskin. I assume that there will be many more practical jokes from Huck, and I believe it is easy to say that mostly all will end poorly like this one.
Huck is a very complex character, and I cannot quite figure out why I think this. It may be that I believe even though he misbehaves he is truly good at heart, but I am not sure. Either way, Huck is difficult, but by the end of the tenth chapter there are three very definite traits about him. He is a witty, superstitious jokester who will be causing trouble for himself and all those close to him.