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Huck finn's morals
Essay on superstitious beliefs
Essay on superstitious beliefs
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Superstition in Huck Finn In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, there is a lot of superstition. Some examples of superstition in the novel are Huck killing a spider which is bad luck, the hair-ball used to tell fortunes, and the rattle-snake skin Huck touches that brings Huck and Jim good and bad luck. Superstition plays an important role in the novel Huck Finn. In Chapter one Huck sees a spider crawling up his shoulder, so he flipped it off and it went into the flame of the candle. Before he could get it out, it was already shriveled up. Huck didn't need anyone to tell him that it was an bad sign and would give him bad luck. Huck got scared and shook his clothes off, and turned in his tracks three times. He then tied a lock of his hair with a thread to keep the witches away. "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 of bad luck when you'd killed a spider."(Twain 5). In chapter four Huck sees Pap's footprints in the snow. So Huck goes to Jim to ask him why Pap is here. Jim gets a hair-ball that is the size of a fist that he took from an ox's stomach. Jim asks the hair-ball; Why is Pap here? But the hair-ball won't answer. Jim says it needs money, so Huck gives Jim a counterfeit quarter. Jim puts the quarter under the hair-ball. The hair-ball talks to Jim and Jim tells Huck that it says. "Yo'ole father doan' know yit what he's a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he spec he'll go 'way, en den ag'in he spec he'll stay. De bes' way is tores' easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey's two angles hoverin' roun' 'bout him. One uv'em is white en shiny, en t'other one is black. De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sil in en gust it all up. A body can't tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him at de las'. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable trouble in yo' life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyne to git well ag'in. Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout yo' in yo' life. One uv 'em's light en t'other one is dark. One is rich en t'other is po'. You's gwyne to marry de po' one fust en de rich one by en by. You wants to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin, en don't run no resk, 'kase it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne to git hung." (Twain 19). Huck goes home and goes up to his room that night and Pap is there. In Chapter ten, Huck and Jim run into good luck and bad luck. The good luck was Huck and Jim finds eight dollars in the pocket of an overcoat. After dinner on Friday, they are lying in the grass, then Huck ran out of tobacco, so he went to the craven to get some, and finds a rattlesnake. Huck kills it and curled it up and put it on the foot of Jim's blanket. Night came and Jim flung himself on the blanket and the snake's mate was there, and it bit Jim on the heel. Jim tells Huck to chop off the snake's head, then skin the body of the snake and roast a peice of it. He took the rattles off and tied them to Jim wrist. Jim said it would help him. Huck says "I made up my mind I wouldn't ever take a-holt of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what had come of it." (Twain 52). As one can see Superstition plays an important role in the novel Huck Finn. Huck killing the spider which is bad luck, the hair-ball that tells fortunes, and the rattle-snake skin that Huck touched are examples that brought bad luck to Huck and Jim in the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
One of the first examples of superstition is a simple thing that carried some of the biggest consequences.”One morning I happened to turn over the saltcellar 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, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and crossed me off. “This is an example of how everything superstition has a ritual to remove the bad luck. Huck was not satisfied thought with what the widow had done for him he says “The widow put in a good word for me, but that warn’t going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough.” This fear of bad luck was acompanied by seeing his fathers shoe prints in the snow so Huck knew he had to do something. What Huck ended up doing was going to Miss Watson’s slave Jim who had a magical hair-ball. When Huck goes to find out what the hairball can tell him Jim tells Huck that the hairball needs money to tell his fortune. All Huck had however is a conterfiet quarter. Jim managed to make it work though by sticking it inside a potato to fool the hair-ball. What the hair ball ended up telling them is this “Yo’ole fathe doan’ know yit what he’s a gwyne to do.
Huck grows more apologetic upon the next prank he pulls on Jim. While traveling on the river, Huck and Jim reach a point in their path where a dense fog rolls in, causing them to lose their way and get separated from each other. Huck takes advantage of the opportunity given by this natural event and decides to play another trick on Jim (94). However, Jim did not handle it too well since he is worried sick. This post fog scene is one of many turning points of Huck’s moral development. He knows that it was wrong of him to make a fool of Jim because it made him feel so mean that he could kiss Jim’s foot (95). Although Huck did not mean it in a literal sense, what he said is powerful because he would have to bend over and lie close to the ground
The main character in this story is Huck Finn, Finn is a young boy with many problems going on in life. Huck was in need of a father figure more then any thing else in life. He needed someone to talk to about anything. Huck's Pap was never there for him except maybe to give him a tanning. Huck's Pap thought that he was trying to out do him, because he went to school. "You've put on considerable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you. You think you're better'n your father, now don't you, because he can't? I'll take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such hifalut'n foolishness, hey?-who told you you could" Pap scolded (p,26). Huck didn't like having to wear nice clothes, or even going to school, but the he had to go. "Starchy clothes-very. You think you're a good deal of a big-bug, don't you" Pap asked (p,26)?
In the beginning of the novel, Huck tends to have an immature side to him. There are some things in the beginning that show that Huck still has a very childish side to him. "They get down on one thing when they don't know nothing about it." (Twain 2) This is showing the ignorance and stubbornness that all children experience throughout life. He thinks as if everything he does is right and everyone else is wrong. "That all comes of my being such a fool as to not remember that wherever you leave a dead snake its mate always comes there and curls around it." (Twain 40) This goes one step further. This shows Huck's Immaturity and Stupidity gone one step too far when he puts the snake in Jim's bed and he ends up getting bit by it. If Huck was more mature and less childish he wouldn't have been playing this so called joke on Jim. Huck learns that jokes have a limit to them at times and need to be thought out more clearly.
Huck finds out that all of the bad things he did are coming back to haunt him. In chapter 31 when Jim gets sold for forty dollars, Huck realizes that “here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time whilst from up there in heaven.'; It also scared Huck because all this karma, what comes around goes around, was happening to him.
At night, Huck and Jim see lights and wonder if they are near Cairo. Huck canoes to a person on a skiff and asks if they have found Cairo. The man rudely explains that they have not and threatens him to go away. After passing another town Huck and Jim conclude that they passed Cairo when they got lost in the fog. Jim becomes upset. He exclaims, “‘Po’ niggers can’t have no luck. I awluz ‘spected dat rattle-snake skin warn’t done wid its work’” (Twain 114). Huck’s response to Jim’s comment displays his affection for Jim. As Huck feels responsible for the rattlesnake, he reveals how much he cares about Jim. Also, that Huck blames the rattlesnake for Jim’s encounters reveals Huck’s desire to get rid of his bad luck (Robinson 221). The quote explains how Jim seems fated to living an unhappy life. Slavery has left him with a sense of hopelessness. Jim does not understand why he cannot live the free life he deserves. The injustice of slavery is also difficult for Huck to comprehend. Since Huck was raised to believe that slavery is beneficial to society, he struggles to see the other side of the story. Huck learns that slavery is unfair through his relationship with Jim. He sees how slaves are real people with understandable feelings. After viewing slavery this way, Huck finds it difficult to understand how it can be allowed. By blaming the rattlesnake, Jim and Huck point the finger at superstition for causing the evils of
is very depressed due to the fact that he thinks he is in love with
Superstition is used in the novel to emphasize the feelings of the characters. One instance is when Huck is sitting by an open window at night.
In Mark Twain’s Huck Finn, childhood is depicted in a way that dubs Huck with characteristics such as innocence, naivety, and curiosity. As a result of his youth, Huck is able to approach conflict without having to make judgements and he acts upon his thoughts while being virtually exempt from punishment. In addition, in the context of the morally heavy topics in Huck Finn, Huck’s adventurous and overall young attitude balance the controversial topics of racism and slavery well. However, Huck matures over the course of the novel. When Huck was trying to play a harmless joke on Jim, Huck puts a dead snake next to Jim; inevitably, the snake’s mate comes back and bites Jim in the leg. When Huck realizes what he has done is morally wrong, he says
Have you ever read, or watched the story of Romeo and Juliet? This story of these two teens with fighting families falling in love will keep you on the edge of your seat! The story of Romeo and Juliet was written by William Shakespeare in 1595 and is still a classic and commonly known today. A reason why it is still so popular today is because people love all the twist and turns. Who would not love reading about two sworn enemies falling in love and ending up on their deathbeds, due to this it causes the book to have a lot of cause and effect.
Mark Twain’s text, Huckleberry Finn brought a world of a new generation to life through the actions and thoughts of Huck. It showed the building of the younger generation, by his confusion of Jim’s escape. He thought of how helping Jim was technically stealing property, but the more he got to know Jim he realized that Jim was an equal to himself. This novel brought the idea of slaves being actual people, and brought up forth a lot of arguments also. The characterization of Huck was developed beautifully and probably one of the most important scenes for his moral realization was the scene of the rattlesnake scene. It showed how he had matured through the adventure, and how he didn’t find pranks as funny since it had endangered his friend, and it opened him up for multiple other character changes.
counts. She doesn't know what he looks like so to her he is a friend.
asks him if he would like to go hunting. But Orsino is so much in love
In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, the theme of superstition is obviously portrayed in both views of Jim and Huck. Huck shows his beliefs in superstition throughout the entire novel, but especially in the beginning. Between Huck And Jim, Jim is by far the most superstitious. Huckleberry Finn is superstitious out of terror, while Jim is superstitious out of beliefs and his education. Huck and Jim have different point of views on how they see superstition.
of all men when they are in love. This idea is supported when he and