Literature Analysis #1

1. At the beginning, Huckleberry Finn, hereby known as Huck, is living with the widow Douglas because he is rich and the widow wants to civilize him.Then Huck's father comes back to the village/town of St. Petersburg after a year long absence and the man kidnaps his own son. Huck escapes to an island and finds a runaway slave, Jim, from the town. They become runaway companions and they have many adventures as they sail in a raft along the Mississippi River. There are many times where Huck sees Jim as something more than just a runaway slave; he begins to see Jim as a friend. For a while, they are stuck traveling with two con artists but eventually, Huck and Jim are able to get rid of them.
2. This book has many themes, but one of the more important ones is "the hypocrisy of religion in the antebellum South". Basically, it means that the religious people in the South who practiced and/or liked slavery were hypocrites because they considered other human beings "property' even though their religion,Christianity, teaches that all humans are equal before God.
3. I first came across this book in my English class in junior high during SSR. It appealed to me because the title had the word "adventure" and I've always wanted to read an adventure book that was a little challenging to read.(Basically, one that's not for little kids.) It was interesting but I put it back on the rack and forgot about it the next day. Eventually, I got my own copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I chose this book for my literature analysis because I thought that it would be a very good book to talk about because of it's powerful moments and interesting themes. I also chose this book because I found out that some school districts banned it and I wanted to show them that banning this book was a mistake. Sure it uses the "n-" word a lot, but it was written in the 1800's, so how was Mark Twain supposed to know that people in the 21st century find his book racist? Besides, the book just shows how the people during that time period spoke and not even the slaves considered  the "n-" word racist. The involvement of kids around my age made the book made me want to keep reading.
4. I did find this book realistic. I made connections from this book to other books I've read, like Escape from Camp 14. I made the connection because both Huck and Shin wanted some form of freedom. Huck wanted freedom from Southern society while Shin wanted to be free to eat more food.
5. The author's tone is juvenile and innocent because of the young Huckleberry Finn. The tone is like a mixture of wit, irony, sarcasm, and satire, making the tone humorous at some points. For example at the beginning of the book, there was a notice that went something like this:"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be persecuted;persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished;persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot." In modern times, it's probably not very funny, but back when this book was written, it probably was. Another quote demonstrating the humor and maybe wit was "Yes; en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns myself, en I's worth eight hund'd dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn't want no mo'". Once in a while, the tone could be philosophical, like when Huck is trying to decide between helping Jim to freedom or turning him in like he was taught to."What's the use of trying to do right, when it's troublesome to do right and it ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?"
6. In Chapter 9, there is a storm and the way Huck describes it goes like this: "...and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they was wild; and next when it was just about the bluest and blackest-fst! it was as bright as glory, and you'd have a little glimpse of treetops a-plunging about away off yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards further than you can see before; dark as sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash, and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky towards the underside of the world , like rolling empty barrels downstairs-where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know."(Twain 55-56) There are at least 7 or 8 samples of figurative samples in this scene, including the first half, which was not mentioned.  The book also makes allusions to the Bible and to Shakespeare's plays, particularly Hamlet. There was a scene where the younger of the two con artists, the "duke", was trying to remember Hamlet's soliloquy so that the "king" could perform it as a part of their first money making scheme."To be or not to be, that is the bare bodkin that makes calamity of so long a life...". And when the two cons are making up their identities, there is an allusion to the French Revolution when the king says he is the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. An example of an allusion to the Bible would be where a priest holds up and spreads open a Bible exclaiming "It's the brazen serpent! Look upon it and live!" (This refers to the bronze serpent Moses made to cure the people who were bitten by the snakes.) Later on the allusion to Romeo and Juliet is made when the duke is teaching the king how to act like Juliet."...he [the duke] says,' you mustn't bellow out Romeo! that way, like a bull-you must say it soft and sick and languishy, so R-o-omeo! that is the idea; for Juliet's a dear sweet mere child of a girl, you know, and she doesn't bray like a [donkey]."

Characterization

1. Sadly, there is no direct characterization in the book. (I spent about an hour looking for examples of direct characterization and I found none.) The author establishes character through appearance, speech, and/or actions. For example, Huck describes Miss Watson as " a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on" and he also complains about how concerned she is with his education."Miss Watson...took a set at me now with a spelling book. she worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer." Another example of indirect characterization is Tom Sawyer. He tries to make it so that his life is like an adventure book. There is proof of this in Chapter 2, where Tom is establishing the rules of his gang of robbers. "'Ransomed? What's that?' 'I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen it in the books; and so of course that's what we've got to do.' 'But how can we do it if we don't know what is is?' 'Why, blame it all, we've got to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the books?'" from this quote, readers know that Tom is the kind of boy who let's his Romantic idealism get the better of him.
2.  At the beginning of the book, Mark Twain warns the reader that he uses different dialects to tell the story. Huck's dialect involves improper contractions, like "ain't", and mispronounced words. His tone of voice often places words and contractions in the wrong order."What's the use you learning to do right, when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?" Huck also makes conjugation errors, which is common to his dialect, which is a Pike County dialect. The syntax also changes when Huck's companion Jim speaks. Jim's manner of speech consists of words that are conjuncted together. Example: "De bes' way is to res' easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey's two angels hoverin roun' 'bout him".
3. Huck is a dynamic and round character. At the beginning of the book he was practical though ignorant. Huck may steal and lie, but he does it with the intention of helping others. For example, he steals the money that the king and the duke had hidden away with the intention of returning it to the rightful owners, the nieces of Peter Wilkes. Huck is resourceful because he has managed to survive without proper guidance. He is also practical in the sense that all he wants is freedom and the ability to do the right thing.
4. After reading the book, I felt like I had traveled back to the antebellum South and met Huckleberry Finn. I'm not even kidding. He seems so real but I don't think he'd fit in in modern America the way he is now. Huck seems so real because his book doesn't make him look like the "good guy", but instead it makes him just another human being struggling with what is right and what is wrong... Maybe he'll fit in in the modern world after all, because don't we all struggle with doing the right thing?

Enduring Memory 

     Two ideas from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that I expect to remember for a long time are: 1. some religious people are total hypocrites and 2. total freedom sounds really cool but it isn't. The first idea is a little more obvious. Miss Watson was super religious, honored religious customs, and even went as far as teaching Huck about Christianity. But, somehow, she saw nothing wrong in slavery. "By and by they fetched the n---ers in and had prayers." Another, less obvious, example of religious hypocrisy is the feud between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons. "Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody a-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The Sheperdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery teaching-all about brotherly love and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said it was a good sermon, and they ll talked it over going home, and had such a powerful lot to say about faith and good works and free grace and preforeordestination..."  First of all, they took a gun to church?! Not only that, they were ready and willing to use it while listening to a sermon about brotherly love. The Grangerfords went as far to say that it was a good sermon, but they do not even practice "brotherly love" with the Sheperdsons but instead try to kill them. The second idea is not very obvious in the novel but that does not make it any less important. The best way to talk about this is by talking about the river. Metaphorically, the river represents unbound freedom, but it also represents freedom out of control. While traveling along the Mississippi, Huck is happy and "free" with Jim. The raft represents freedom, too. "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."  But during his journey, Huck runs into all kinds of problems, like the Grangerford-Shepherdson feud, and the king and the duke. The river suggests that freedom is great and all, but it comes with a great responsibility.