KidLit Forum

Motto: “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another”

2 distinct worlds can be depicted in the book:

a. On the river banks (after each incident on the shore, Jim is there to restore the balance )
b. On the river itself (they are free from rules; they make their own rules without restrictions: “We said there warn’t no home like a raft ,after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft”)

That means somehow there are 2 rivers
World no.1 – before they arrive to the mouth of the Ohio River =>fog acts like a curtain that separates the 2 worlds
World no. 2 – after they miss the mouth of the river
Life ashore can be studied through anthropology at a smaller scale:

A. From a social – cultural branch’s point of view in which we can study the way people make sense of the world around them and the relationships among persons and groups: e.g. all the superstitions mentioned in the book : (in terms of cultural values and symbols)

a. Jim thinks he was bewitched “Afterward Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the state, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils.(…) Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches .”

b. Huck knows some superstitions, too: “One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast. I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck (…)I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn't one of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along low-spirited and on the watch-out.”

c. “(…) then I happened to think how they always put quicksilver in loaves of bread and float them off, because they always go right to the drownded carcass and stop there.”

d. Folk belief in nature’s sign – “Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time and lighting. Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain. He said it was a sign when young chickens flew that way, and so he reckoned it was the same way when young birds done it. I was going to catch some of them, but Jim wouldn't let me. He said it was death. He said his father laid mighty sick once, and some of them catched a bird, and his old granny said his father would die, and he did.
And Jim said you mustn't count the things you are going to cook for dinner, because that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook the tablecloth after sundown. And he said if a man owned a beehive and that man died, the bees must be told about it before sun-up next morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die.(…) Jim knowed all kinds of signs.(…) I asked him if there warn't any good-luck signs(…)Ef you's got hairy arms en a hairy breas', it's a sign dat you's a-gwyne to be rich.(… ) he said a man that warn't buried was more likely to go a-ha'nting around than one that was planted and comfortable”

e. the author’s mockery towards the church: “If you notice, most folks don't go to church only when they've got to; but a hog is different.”

f. the author’s mockery towards the church – the entire Chapter XXIII

g. the author’s mockery towards the British monarchy: “You read about them once—you'll see. Look at Henry the Eight; this 'n' 's a Sunday-school Superintendent to him. And look at Charles Second, and Louis Fourteen, and Louis Fifteen, and James Second, and Edward Second, and Richard Third, and forty more; besides all them Saxon heptarchies that used to rip around so in old times and raise Cain. My, you ought to seen old Henry the Eight when he was in bloom. He was a blossom. He used to marry a new wife every day, and chop off her head next morning. And he would do it just as indifferent as if he was ordering up eggs. 'Fetch up Nell Gwynn,' he says. They fetch her up. Next morning, 'Chop off her head!' And they chop it off. 'Fetch up Jane Shore,' he says; and up she comes. Next morning, 'Chop off her head'—and they chop it off. 'Ring up Fair Rosamun.' Fair Rosamun answers the bell. Next morning, 'Chop off her head.' And he made every one of them tell him a tale every night; and he kept that up till he had hogged a thousand and one tales that way, and then he put them all in a book, and called it Domesday Book—which was a good name and stated the case. You don't know kings, Jim, but I know them; and this old rip of ourn is one of the cleanest I've struck in history. Well, Henry he takes a notion he wants to get up some trouble with this country. How does he go at it—give notice?—give the country a show? No. All of a sudden he heaves all the tea in Boston Harbor overboard, and whacks out a declaration of independence, and dares them to come on. That was his style—he never give anybody a chance. He had suspicions of his father, the Duke of Wellington. Well, what did he do? Ask him to show up? No—drownded him in a butt of mamsey, like a cat. S'pose people left money laying around where he was—what did he do? He collared it. S'pose he contracted to do a thing, and you paid him, and didn't set down there and see that he done it—what did he do? He always done the other thing. S'pose he opened his mouth—what then? If he didn't shut it up powerful quick he'd lose a lie every time. That's the kind of a bug Henry was; and if we'd 'a' had him along 'stead of our kings he'd 'a' fooled that town a heap worse than ourn done. I don't say that ourn is lambs, because they ain't, when you come right down to the cold facts; but they ain't nothing to that old ram, anyway. All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty ornery lot. It's the way they're raised. (…)Well, anyways, I doan' hanker for no mo' un um, Huck. Dese is all I kin stan'.(…) . Sometimes I wish we could hear of a country that's out of kings "

e.g. all the encounters with people belonging to different social classes (where the following areas could be discussed: human behavior, influences in social organization and culture, social conflicts, cultural diversity)

a. the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson = > society that tries to civilize Huck
b. the Grangefords
c. the Wilks
d. Silas and Sally Phepls
d. the duke and the dauphin => bad society

B. From a linguistic branch’s point of view (to understand the process of human communications that can be verbal/ non-verbal, variations in language, the social uses of the language, and the relationship between language and culture)
- Use of dialect = an exercise that needs to be read aloud =>shows the character’s status in society

The characteristisc of the picaresque novel (highlighted on the above comments):
- It has a picaro or a semi-criminal as its central figure, to shift for himself early in life.
- The plot consists of a series of thrilling events only loosely connected together by the fact that the same central character figures in them all.
- The plot is episodic, and the insider thrilling or sensational.
- There is immense variety-social setting of incident and of character.
- A picture of contemporary society is thus presented realistically and completely.
- The novelist may satirize various faults of character or the corruption of society, but his purpose is to entertain and delight.
- He is not concerned, to any great extent, with moral issues. The picaresque novel is not moral in its intention.

FOR FUN

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Monika Bandi