Huck Superstistion in the Novel

1736 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Themes of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Huck Superstistion in the Novel

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 a 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".

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 g...

... middle of paper ...

... 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 piece of it. He took the rattles off and tied them to Jim’s 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".

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.

Show More
Related

  • Tom Sawyer Chapter Summaries

    1883 Words  | 4 Pages

    When Huck and Jim sink the boat they start to gather some valuables on the robbers boat. They noticed that everything that are taking is just almost everyday materials such as clothes, cigars, and a bunch of books. Huck and Jim bring their raft to the shore and stop and sleep in the woods for the night. When they were just sitting their Huck opened up one of the books and started to read it. As he was reading it, he thought of Widow Douglass and how she would be proud of Huck for reading. While reading the book, Huck also realizes a name in the book the name is Dauphin, and was told that he is out in America wandering around. But Jim just sits back and doesn’t believe what Huck is saying at all.

    Read More

  • Huck And Jim's Relationship

    803 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the beginning of the novel, Huck plays many practical jokes on Jim. Huck and Tom begin the novel by waking up Jim when he is sleeping under a tree. They are both very immature boys and think it will be fun to scare Jim. They act like Jim isn’t a human being and don’t seem to be bothered by the fact that he has feelings too. When Huck and Jim get separated by the fog Huck must think Jim is stupid and won’t catch onto his lie. “Aamy heart wuz mos’ broke bekase you wuz los’, en I didn’ k’yer no’ mo’ what become er me en de raf’.En when I wake up en fine you back agin,all safe en soun’,de tears come,en I could a got down on my knees en kiss yo foot.”(109) Huck makes Jim believe the whole fog storm was just a dream and gets him very worried. Huck doesn’t realize that Jim is trying to protect him and be a father figure to him, and that he only wants the best for Huck. Huck also thinks Jim isn’t knowledgeable because he is a black slave. Huck and Jim are arguing and Huck feels Jim cannot say anything intelligent so Huck changes the subject. “I never seen such a nigger .If he got a notion in his head once, there warn’t no getting it out again. He was the most down on S...

    Read More

  • Hucklenberry Finn Huck and Jim

    1488 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...t he makes the mature decision of risking his neck to save them from being swindled and humiliated. This judgment proves Huck's ever-rising maturity and has Jim to thank.

    Read More

  • How Does Society Influence Huck Finn

    1486 Words  | 3 Pages

    Upon arriving at Cairo, Huck must decide if he should go along with society and turn Jim in as a runaway slave, or keep his promise to his friend, and see him through to freedom. Huck feels guilty not turning Jim in when he hears him talking about hiring an abolitionist to steal his family. He does not think it is right to help take away slaves from people that he doesn 't even know. To turn Jim in for these reasons would be the influence of society on Huck. Huck 's decision on this matter marks another major step in Huck 's moral progression, because he decides not to turn in Jim on his own. This is the first time he makes a decision all on his own based on his own morality. They stop at Grangerford’s Farm, in Tennessee, after the raft is temporality destroyed. With Huck busy with the Grangerford family, Jim was able to rebuild the raft. Huck just met the Grangerfords, but fits right in immediately. He later feels that someone should take the time to write poetry about Emmeline Grangerford, recently deceased, since she always took the time to write about other people who died. He even tries to write the poetry himself, but it doesn 't turn out right. Then he also sees people shooting at each other makes him sick to his stomach. He sees it as an act against humanity and he simply cannot relate or understand how humans can treat each other in such an uncivil

    Read More

  • charhf Changes in Huck Finn's Character

    669 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Huck Finn Morality

    942 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Huck Finn Argumentative Essay

    1212 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the beginning of Huck's journey, he tells unharmful little white lies to play, often innocent, pranks on others. The snake skin prank was just Huck’s idea of a little fun. During the prank played on Jim, Huck lies without even really realizing it.

    Read More

  • Journey to Freedom: An Analysis of Huckleberry Finn

    1124 Words  | 3 Pages

    Huck got a glimmer of hope when the village thought they found Pap drowned in the river, but Huck reasoned that the body was not Pap, and Huck expresses his fear when he says, "So I was uncomfortable again. I judged the old man would turn up by and by, though I wished he wouldn't" (Twain, 11). Huck’s fear of Pap is so extreme that Pap’s survival comes as a disappointment. Huck wishes Pap would stay away and never come back, but he keeps coming back to get money for whiskey,which Huck gives to him because it will make him go away. The whole town knows that Pap is abusive and they are always trying their best to get him sober or legally take Huck away from him, but they never manage to succeed. Pap doesn't even want Huck to be educated, and orders him to stop going to school. Neither Pap nor Huck's mother learned to read, and Pap accuses Huck of feeling superior because he is getting an education. In contrast to Pap, Jim is always kind to Huck during their journey, and he drinks alcohol to relieve venom from a snake bite, not to get drunk like Pap. He is never abusive to Huck, and is a better father to Huck than Pap ever

    Read More

  • What Purpose Does Huck's Death Serve

    356 Words  | 1 Pages

    Huck snuck up on Jim as he was waking up one morning because Huck was looking for food. Jim ran away from the Widow and Miss Watson because he heard Miss Watson talking about selling him.

    Read More

  • Mark Twain, The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

    1545 Words  | 4 Pages

    Soon after joining Jim on the island, Huck begins to realize that Jim has more talents and intelligence than Huck has been aware of. Jim knows "all kinds of signs" about the future, people's personalities, and weather forecasting. Huck finds this kind of information necessary as he and Jim drift down the Mississippi on a raft. As important, Huck feels a comfort with Jim that he has not felt with the other major characters in the novel. With Jim, Huck can enjoy the best aspects of his earlier influences. Jim's meaning to Huck changes as they proceed through their adventure. He starts out as an extra person just to take on the journey, but they transform into a friend. "It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger."(chap. XV) Huck tries to squeal on Jim but can't because he remembers that Jim called him "de bes' fren' I ever had;...de on'y white genlman dat ever kep' his promise to ole Jim."(chap. XVI) Huck realizes that he can not turn Jim in since they both act as runaway outcasts on the river. The support they have for each other sprouts friendship. As does the Widow, Jim allows Huck security, but Jim is not as confining as is the Widow. Like Tom Sawyer, Jim is intelligent but his intelligence ...

    Read More

  • Religion, Slavery, and Democracy in Huckleberry Finn

    765 Words  | 2 Pages

    Twain’s skeptical take on religion can be elicited because superstition is a theme that both Huck and Jim bring up several times. Although both of these characters tend to be quite rational, they quickly become irrational when anything remotely superstitious happens to them. The role of superstition in this book is two-fold: First, it shows that Huck and Jim are child-like in spite of their otherwise extremely mature characters. Second, it serves to foreshadow the plot at several key junctions. For example, spilling salt leads to Pa returning for Huck, and later Jim gets bitten by a rattlesnake after Huck touches a snakeskin with his hands.

    Read More

  • Violence In Huck Finn Analysis

    687 Words  | 2 Pages

    In one of the first instances of violence, when Huck encounters his father for the first time, his abusive father “kidnaps him” and the two go together to live in a wooden hut. Many times in the night time, Huck mentions, “ Every little while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky and fetched it home and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me (whipped)” (Chapter 6) His father’s abusive habits increase as Huck keeps living with his father to the point where his father chases him around in the night trying to kill him with a knife saying that he is the Angel of Death “he chased me round and round the place with a clasp-knife, calling me the Angel of Death.... I begged, and told him I was only Huck, but he laughed such a screechy laugh, roared, cussed, and kept on chasing me up.” (Chapter 6) This traumatizing experience causes Huck to take drastic measures to escape from his father. But when Huck leaves with Jim, he soon enough encounters other occasions of treachery and crime that influence him to do the “correct” thing...

    Read More

  • jimhf Huck and Jim’s Relationship

    1075 Words  | 3 Pages

    While Pap acts as an anchor on Huck's heel, Jim opens up a new world for Huck, and becomes his companion and a resource of knowledge.

    Read More

  • Dialectic journal, Huck Finn Ch. 9-16

    436 Words  | 1 Pages

    Huck plays this trick on Jim, but doesn’t realize it would hurt him so much. Jim is very hurt, and goes inside the wigwam. Huck has to bring up courage to apologize to Jim because he is black. This is sort of ironic because Jim was just talking about kissing Huck’s feet because he was glad he was back, but then Huck feels so bad for hurting Jim, that he could kiss Jim’s feet, even if he was black. Huck seems to have a moment which will help him along on the path of equality between whites and blacks as well.

    Read More

  • Character Differences Between Huck And Jim

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    The way Huck and Jim encounter each other on the island, draws parallels in their similar backgrounds. Huck is torn between a life of manners and etiquette and a dangerous life a freedom, and while Jim at an impasse because he is being sold into slavery farther away from his home and away from his family. Each choice, for both characters comes with a cost so they both decide to runaway, in an attempt to assert some control over their lives. After spending much time together, the pair establish a connection which at times Huck feels guilty about since it violates everything he was raised to believe. At a certain point, Huck considers turning Jim in by, writing a letter, but after recalling the goods times they shared, Huck exclaims, "All right, then, I 'll go to hell!” (Twain) and quickly tears up the letter. Twain depicts Huck and Jim 's eventually friendship as a source of emotional strife for Huck and Huck constantly has to decide whether to abandon Jim and turn him in or abandon his religious beliefs and stay with Jim. The ripping up of the letter that would have turned Jim in symbolizes the choice Huck 's has selected. For this moment onward, Huck is dedicated to keeping Jim from being sold back into slavery and has no intent on going back on his choice. While there are times, Huck pays attention to the color of Jim 's skin he believes that

    Read More

More about Huck Superstistion in the Novel

Open Document