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.