Huck Finn Journal
...bbed. March 3, 2005 (Chapters 16-20) A lot of the information in these chapters was based on the social aspect of the southern states. Each chapter brought in some new characters who challenged/tested each of the characters personalities in some way. I kept finding out more and more information about Huck and different ways he could be. Like Huck is constantly trying to be stupider than he really is. Like he tells the slave-hunters that he is too weak to drag the raft to the shore by himself. I wonder why Huck puts up with the Duke and King? I think Huck is very much so intimidated by both of those men, even though they are just con artists. It was very smart of them to just play along and pretend to be easily tricked. The king was very good with words, and I think that people were way to trusting back then. I mean, he all of a sudden tells everyone he has changed, and the next thing you know he has got 80 dollars in his hand to spend on anything he chooses. When Buck is killed, Huck is deeply affected by the entire thing, and says he cried a little. He wishes that he had not played a role in causing the death of so many people. At the same time, he realizes how foolish the whole fight between the 2 families really is. March 5, 2005 (Chapters 21-25) The scene where Huck describes Hamlet was kind of humorous, especially because the Duke totally biffed the lines. I personally feel horrible for Bogg’s daughter who watched her father get murdered. That would totally change a person, seeing something that tragic and horrible. After all of the funny things that were going on, that really made me get back into a “serious mode” while reading the book. Jim's story about his daughter was touching, he hits her for not listening to him, it showed Huck that Jim cares more about his children than Huck's father ever was about him. In a nutshell, Duke and King have no respect for humans. Huck is completely disgusted of them and “ashamed of the human race”. I totally dig the fact that Huck’s views on the human race have changed since the beginning of the book, he really learned that black and white people are not so different, which is a completely awesome realization. With these chapters, Huck is really maturing. He is ready to take a stand for himself, and be a true individual. March 7, 2005 (Chapters 26-30) As I said before, I could tell Huck was really maturing… and in these chapters he still is growing. He is not just being a follower, and he is also finding some attraction to girls. He breaks free of this authority when he decides to steal back the money. Huck finds new words to describe females, including beautiful, and comments that when he sees her light the candle in the window, "my heart swelled up sudden, like to burst." Aww… its cute to see a young boy falling in love. Huck is desperate to escape the King and the Duke by the end. Jim really isn’t in on much of the action of these chapters. The breaking up of the slave family has meant a lot more after Jim discusses his family, because then it shows that Jim ran away to escape a similar lifestyle. March 8, 2005 (Chapters 30-31) The lie that keeps Huck from praying is that he is that he is helping Jim escape from slavery. He felt if he sent the letter to Miss Watson that he would be betraying Jim and if it got out he would have to face the consequences, and it also strikes him that someone more powerful is watching his sins and he’s beginning to feel guilty. I don’t think as a result of this moral crisis Huck realizes that the institution of slavery is wrong. His individual conscience is victorious over what he has been taught by a prejudiced society. He realizes that Jim is to be valued as a human being with human emotions, not a piece of property to be sold. But that’s only about one person not the whole race in general March 9, 2005 (Chapters 32-39) Tom tells Huck that they should dig a hole big enough to smuggle Jim through. Before they start work, they make friends with the dogs and the servant. Huck goes along with the plan because when Tom is around he is very dependent on him. When Jim is informed of the plan, he doesn’t really understand it but he goes along with it because he doesn’t know how to stand up to a white person. In a sense Jim is right back where he started, escaping slavery just like he did at the beginning of the novel. Huck in a way realizes this, but forgets Jim is suffering all over again. March 11, 2005 (Chapters 40-43) No other relationship in the novel affects Huck as profoundly as his friendship with Jim. Jim serves as a good role model for Huck, because he shows Huck love and Jim truly cares for him. He might not be the smartest person, or the wealthiest but he taught Huck far more than education he taught him how to love and care for someone. Huck obviously changed throughout the book. I think he realizes more now that he can take care of himself and thinks more of himself than he did before. He also grew in an emotional way, in learning that people could love and care for him. He also realize that civilization isn’t all its cracked up to be and when Aunt Sally wants to adopt him he runs off again because he rather be uncivilized than reside on shore where it is filled with hatred, violence and greed. March 12, 2005 In using a child protagonist, Twain is able to imply a comparison between the powerlessness and vulnerability of a child and the powerlessness and vulnerability of a black man in pre-Civil War America. Huck and Jim frequently find themselves in the same predicaments: each is abused, each faces the threat of losing his freedom, and each is constantly at the mercy of adult white men. As we see in Huck’s moral dilemmas, however, Jim is also vulnerable to Huck, who, although he occupies the lowest rung of the white social ladder, is white nonetheless. Twain also uses his child protagonist to dramatize the conflict between societal or received morality on the one hand and a different kind of morality based on intuition and experience on the other. As a boy, Huck is a character who can develop morally, whose mind is still open and being formed, who does not take his principles and values for granted. By tracing the education and experiences of a boy, Twain shows that conclusions about right and wrong that are based on logic and experience often stand at odds with the society’s rules and morals, which are often hypocritical rather than logical. At the beginning of Huckleberry Finn, the river is a symbol of freedom and change. Huck and Jim flow with the water and never remain in one place long enough to be pinned down by a particular set of rules. Compared to the “civilized” towns along the banks of the Mississippi, the raft on the river represents an peaceful, alternative ...