Huck Finn Post #3

During Huck Finn's adventures, he temporarily becomes separated from Jim. He finds himself at gunpoint by men questioning if he was a Shepherdson. After failing a riddle produced by a boy named Buck, they decide that he is harmless and invite Huck to live with them. Huck learns that the family that he is staying with, the Grangerfords have had an enmity with the Shepherdson family for decades. When he asks what the feud was over, they replied, "Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago" (Twain 151). Huck further questioned if anyone knew and Buck replied, "Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the other old people; but they don't know now what the row was about in the first place" (Twain 151). This quote shows the humor in the situation. These families are killing each other off for a cause they do not know off. Common sense is thrown away resulting in the families fighting.

A sense of sadness also comes through in the story. Huck is hiding up in the trees to avoid the gun fight occurring below him. When he climbs down, he comes across a situation which he describes as "When I got down out of the tree I crept along down the riverbank on a piece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water, and tugged at them till I got them ashore; then I covered up their faces, and got away as quick as I could. I cried a little when I was covering up Buck's face for he was mighty good to me" (Twain 161). At such a young age, Huck as come across a lot of death. Buck was a person who Huck truly knew well and liked. Even though Huck is perceived to be strong, he couldn't help but cry at the death of his friend.

Mark Twain creates an allusion to the play Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet revolves around the love story of two people who's families have had a row for years. Similarly, the Shepherdsons' and Grangerfords' also share a connection which they both do not know off. Sophia Grangerford and Harney Shephardson both liked each other, but had to hide the affair from their families. Huck wakes up one morning and notices that Buck is not in the room. He discovers that Sophia and Harney have ran away. He asks someone what happened and receives the reply, "Well, den, Miss Sophia's run off! 'deed she has. She run off in de night some time -- nobody don't know jis' when; run off to get married to dat young Harney Shepherdson, you know -- leastways, so dey 'spec" (Twain 158). Both couples had to take the drastic decision of running away. The families in the book and play both suffered tragedies when their children got involved in the battle. Although one set of lover's stories ended tragically, Sophia and Harvey managed to run away.

Huck Finn Post #2

Huck and Jim's relationship in the story portrays a father and their son. Their bond is strong and they trust each other greatly. When Huck discovers that people from the village that he was visiting were going to investigate the cave where they were staying, his first instinct was to hurry there to warn Jim. He was deeply concerned that the people of the town would accuse Jim of his murder. When Huck reached the cave to inform Jim, he says, "Git up and hump yourself, Jim! There ain't a minute to lose. They're after us! Jim never asked no questions, he never said a world; but the way he worked for the next half an hour showed about how he was scared" (Twain 68). This quote explains how Jim trusted Huck with this decision. He didn't carry out an argument or question what was happening. Jim left knowing that he had the support of Huck.


Jim also assumes the paternal when he and Huck are temporarily separated. Jim is very concerned about where Huck is. Huck describes their reunion as, "It was Jim's voice- nothing ever sounded so good before. I run along the bank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me, as he was so glad to see me" (Twain 116). This quote depicts Jim's pleasure in seeing that Huck was alive. He grabbed Huck as if he were embracing his own son. Huck was also content with locating Jim. He felt comfortable when he heard Jim's voice and ran to wear he was.  In a way, Jim acts like a father figure to Huck who has not experienced what it is like to have a "normal" family and Huck is like the children that Jim had to leave behind. Their relationship grows as they continue to encounter different adventures.

My First Impression of Huck Finn

My first impression of Huck Finn was that he did not like to be controlled. He seemed to enjoy defying the adults around him. Huck seemed to just go to school as a pastime. He said that the longer he went, the easier it got. His father Pap, however, didn't like that he was literate. Pap told him that if he caught Huck going to school, he would get a beating. Huck says during the story, "I didn't want to go to school much before, but I reckoned I'd go now to spite pap" (pg. 31). Making Pap angry was his motivation to go to school. Huck could have had to the option to quit school like the rest of his family, but he stuck with it because it was something that depleased his father.

Another strong characteristic of Huck that I noticed was that at the end of the day, he was still a boy. He gains and loses interests in things very quickly. He narrated in the book, "After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in sweat to fiind out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead people" (pg.12). Like many children, he lost interest in this person that he may have considered a hero because he was deceased. His excitment for the story disappeared. Later in the story, after his drunk father attempts to kill him after he thinks that he is being attacked by a snake.  After chasing Huck around, his father doses off leaving Huck holding his gun. The following quote depicts what happens next, "I slipped the ramrod downto make sure it was loaded, then I laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing towards Pap, and set it down behind him waiting for him to stir" (pg. 36). Huck had a loaded gun pointed towards his father, so that when we woke up he would be ready. Instead he fell asleep too and was caught by his father. Huck didn't have enough energy to wait for his father to wake.