Huck Finn Post #3

Huck Finn Post #3

                In the time that Huck spends with the Grangerfords, the elements of humor, sadness, and allusion are present as well. The Grangerfords are a rich family that are engaged in a violent feud with their neighbors, the Shepherdsons, and Huck meets them after he is separated from Jim in a crash on the river. One of the first experiences Huck has with the Grangerfords is rather humorous. Huck goes along with the Grangerfords to church, and they bring their guns with them, and the Shepherdsons had brought their guns as well. These two groups attended a sermon that creates a great sense of situational irony. “It was pretty ornery preaching – all about brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said it was a good sermon…” (Twain 111). This passage is filled with situational irony because the preacher is preaching about brother love to two families who had come to church with guns just so the other family wouldn’t shoot them. It is also verbal irony that everybody thinks it was a great sermon even though they are perfectly ready to start shooting at the Shepherdsons, instead of being loving. Another instance of humorous irony is when Huck is perusing the Grangerfords’ bookshelves, and finds an interesting. “Another was Henry Clay’s speeches, and another was Dr. Gunn’s Family Medicine, which told you all about what to do if a body was sick or dead.” (Twain 103). It is verbal irony for a book of medicine to be called Gunn’s, because a gun is used to injure/kill people. Another piece of irony Huck experiences when he visits the Grangerfords is when he asks Buck to spell his fake last name, because Huck doesn’t know how to spell Jackson, and Buck spells it J-A-X-O-N, which is incorrect. This is ironic because then decides if anyone asks him how his name is spelt he knows how to spell, but he would be spelling it wrong.

                                The Grangerfords are a strange family, and much of what transpires during Huck’s time with them parallels the happenings of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In Romeo and Juliet the families of the two main characters are fighting a feud for an unknown reason, which is virtually the same thing as what is happening to the Grangerfords. “’What was the trouble about, Buck? – Land?’ ‘I reckon maybe – I don’t know’ ‘Well, who done the shooting? Was it a Grangerford or a Shepherdson?’ ‘Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago.’” (Twain 110). Buck tells Huck that the feud has been going on for a long time, and few know why, which is the case in Romeo and Juliet. Another parallel between the pieces is that the Grangerfords’ daughter runs off to marry the Shepherdsons’ son, which is a mirror of what happens in Romeo and Juliet. The Grangerfords’ daughter, Sophia, receives a secret message from a Shepherdson, via Huck, and then runs off to the other sides of the river where neither family can catch them. In Romeo and Juliet, the main characters plan to run off together and get married, but fate intervenes, and both end up dead. Aside from the death at the end, the stories are extremely similar. The two families end up killing several members of the other family at the end, which is very similar to the deaths of Tybalt and Mercutio, in that neither needed to die, yet both ended up dead.

Huck’s stay at the Grangerfords is also filled with sad moments. One of the sad things Huck encounters at the Grangerfords is an empty bedroom, completely furnished for someone to live there. This room used to belong to Emmeline Grangerford, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Grangerford, who died several years previously. What makes it even sadder is that Emmeline spent her life writing about dead people. “Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child died she would be on hand with her ‘tribute’ before he was cold.” (Twain 105). Emmeline would write amazing poetry, yet she would write it about dead people, which is a grim occupation for a young person. Instead of thinking about the good parts of life, Emmeline thought about death, and died before she was had lived a full life. Another moment of tragedy comes when the Grangerfords go after the Shepherdsons, and a full-out gun-fight takes place. Huck’s young friend, who’s about Huck’s same age, partakes in the fight, and many on both sides are killed. “I cried a little when I was covering up Buck’s face, for he was mighty good to me.” (Twain 117). Not only was Buck Huck’s very good friend, but he was just a young boy with his whole life ahead of him, and his passing is a tragedy.

Huck Finn Post #2

Huck Finn Post #2

Huck and Jim have grown very close over their time journeying together, and having been forming a relationship. They have come to depend on each other like a family, with Jim in the role of father, and Huck the son. This evidenced by how comfortable and happy Huck feels with Jim. At one point, Huck hears that the town is sending out a search party to search the island where Jim is hiding. He is seriously worried while Jim is in danger, saying, “I had got so uneasy I couldn’t set still.” (Twain p. 64). Huck has never had a real family before, and the idea that he could lose Jim, who has become his surrogate father figure, is a very scary idea for him. Huck is a very independent and street-smart person, but he is also an immature child, and Jim is an ideal balance for his immaturity. Huck also shows how important Jim is to him when he starts to share his knowledge with him, specifically literature. Jim cannot read, being a slave and having never had an education, and Huck reads to him from the books they found in the loot pile of the robbers on the shipwreck. Huck even tries, in his mind, to be patient with Jim, and humor him during their arguments, even though Huck looks down on Jim and all blacks.

It is even more evident in the behavior of Jim that he and Huck are close enough to be family. Jim worries about Huck whenever he disappears, he tries to keep Huck from making dangerous decisions and educate him with all of the “knowledge” he has. Jim’s care is shown by how he worries about Huck during many events in the story, such as the time when Huck gets lost in the fog. “Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain’ dead – you ain’t drowned – you’s back ag’in? It’s too good for true, honey, it’s too good for true. Let me look at you chile, lemme feel o’ you. No, you ain’t dead! you’s back ag’in , ‘live en sound’, jis de same ole Huck – de same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!” (Twain p. 87) is how Jim responds when he sees Huck again after believing Huck has drowned. He is as worried as if Huck was his own responsibility, as if Huck was his very own son. Jim also tries to pass off all the things that he believes are good knowledgeable onto Huck, namely the superstitions he most believes. Jim is trying to educate and prepare Huck for life as well as he would his own son, which shows just how much of a family the makeshift pair are. With Jim as the father figure, and Huck the son, the two are a better, and more real, family than Huck ever could have had with his own father.

Huck Finn Post #1

Huck Finn Post #1

                                At the beginning of the novel Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, the main character, Huck, is a highly superstitious individual. Huck is a young boy, who places no stock in religion, but believes many superstitions. Huck demonstrates this when he kills a spider,

“I didn’t need anybody to tell me it was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some luck, so I was scared and shook most of the clothes off me. I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast every time; and then I tried to tie up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But I hadn’t no confidence. You do that when you’ve lost a horseshoe that you’ve found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn’t ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you’d killed a spider.”  (Twain p. 13).

This passage includes a strong belief in both bad luck coming back to get you, and of witches as well. Bad luck is viewed as a mild idea today, not a strong belief, and the idea of witches would be classified as nonsensical. However, these superstitions are very real and a big factor in the life of Huck. Huck also believes that spirits will come and haunt the world, as evidenced in the quote,

 “…he said a man that wasn’t buried was more likely to go a-ha’nting than one that was planted and comfortable. That sounded pretty reasonable, so I didn’t say no more…” (Twain p. 58).

Huck believes that a soul would come back to haunt him, which would be viewed as very superstitious by modern standards. Huck is a person who is truly believes in superstitions.

               

                Huck is also adaptable. At the beginning of the novel, Huck becomes accustomed to the life he is expected to live with the widow. He learns to behave (better) and even finds going to school acceptable. Huck even says so himself, “At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it.” (Twain p. 24). Huck shows a great ability to adapt, as he goes from being a homeless and uneducated boy to being a more respectable schoolboy who society can approve. Later on, Huck also shows his adaptability when he  is taken to the cabin in the woods by his father. He returns to a more rural state, saying,

“It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study. Two months or more run along, and my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn’t see how I’d ever got to like it so well at the widow’s…” (Twain p. 32).

At this point Huck has made another transition to what life has thrown at him. Huck adapts to every situation, and sees the best side possible. Even while his world is unsteady, Huck is happy to adapt.