Huck Finn Superstition

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.

You git me that money tomorrow. I want it” (Twain 22). “So he watched out for me one day in the spring, and catched me, and took me up the river about three miles, in a skiff, and crossed over to Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn’t no house but an old log but in a place where the timber was so thick you couldn’t find it if you didn’t know where it was” (Twain 24, 25). This affected Huck by the end of the novel because once they are all safe

Widow Douglas is a who takes care of Huck, she is a nice woman who loves and treats him like her son. Huck’s response to the Moses story is changes because in the beginning he was very interested in it and he wanted to know more about Moses until Widow Douglas revealed that Moses had been dead the whole story. After that Huck stopped caring for Moses and his story. What this tells the reader about Huck is that he doesn’t like when things end in death.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn begins with the boy, Huckleberry (Huck for short), telling a story in a very conversational tone. The story is a recap of Twain’s previous novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, in which Huck and Tom find a robber’s treasure of 12 thousand dollars, and invest it in the bank. Tom had apparently reached out to Huck again, asking him to join Tom’s very own band of robbers. Huck, of course, agreed, and moved back in with Widow Douglas, who cares for him, and makes sure he remains clean. Huck, however, is selfish, and dislikes being “civilized.” He accepts religious and social views the widow enforces upon him, yet decides for himself if he wants to follow them, and doesn’t tell her so as to not cause any unnecessary

Huck Finn does not fully understand religion. The widow tells him he can ask God for whatever he wants so he thinks of religion as asking God for specific items. Religion is actually a more spiritual concept, and Huck is not mature enough to realize this. This is apparent when he mentions “Miss Watson she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn't any good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I

A major theme of the novel is the hypocrisy and double standards that are evident in the society surrounding Huck. This trait is found especially within Christian and religious types in the novel. Twain shows almost every good Christian in the novel as having a generous and kind side, which completely contradicts much of their actions. Twain believes that this hypocrisy is the underlining element that makes religion skeptical. As it is seen in the book, almost every good Christian contradicts himself or herself in some way. Perhaps Huck's first example of this was when the Widow Douglas did not allow him to smoke, as it was a mean practice. However, “she took snuff too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself” (Twain 2). Another example was the Grangerfords. Huck described this family as very nice and kind and even considered Buck a good friend. But once again, the hypocrisy of religious types was bound to come into play. These same people are slave owners and have a feud with a similar family, the Shepherdsons for reasons they don't remember. Perhaps the biggest example of this hypocrisy was when Huck went to church with the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons. As Huck explains, “the men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees.... it was pretty ornery preaching all about brotherly love” (Twain 83). It is obvious that the two families had their guns in their laps while the preacher talked about

In the fourth chapter Huck sees Pap's footprints in the snow. So Huck goes to Jim to ask him why Pap is there. 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. The counterfeit quarter allows the reader to ponder the thought that Jim and Huck are superstitious, yet they still cheat the superstition like it doesn’t exist. Almost as if being superstitious is such a normal attribute that Huck and Jim don’t know they’re superstitious. Jim puts the quarter under the hair-ball. The hair-ball talks to Jim and Jim repeats it back to Huck. "Yo'ole father doan' know yit what he's a-gwyne to do" (19). Jim tells Huck that he’s going to have many troubles in his life, but also considerable joy. Also, that he’s going to get sick, but always recover healthy and that he’s going to marry first a poor woman, then a rich one. If a person knows, or think they know how their life is going to turn out life can go two ways: they could come to a

I wisht I was dead’ ”, which showed he was so terrified of the witches he would rather die than confront his fear (Twain). While the other characters, Jim and Huckleberry, weren’t so drastic with their superstitions they still endured them. Jim had three major superstitions that helped farther the storyline, those were the hairball on page 26, the snakeskin on pages 59 and 60, and the birds on page 52. These superstitions of Jim’s were used in the story to make the plot more believable. Slaves were commonly denied, had laws set forbidding them from, an education which led to them believing old traditions such as superstitions.

In multiple studies of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, many critics have closely examined Huck Finn’s struggles to conform to society’s expectation because he becomes conflicted between his true ideals and the ideals society has forced upon him. According to Johnson, "Huck has his own flaws: He rarely tells the truth, he steals, and he is gullible, particularly when it comes to superstition. But when faced with a dire situation, Huck usually does the right thing” (75). Although Huck repeatedly finds himself to be conflicted with Southern ideals at the end of the novel, Huck finally decides to follow his own beliefs. Davis states that, “Through Huck 's innocent descriptions of white misbehavior, Huckleberry Finn implicitly condemns not only individual white characters but also the culture that they represent. Huck rarely fully

Jim told Huck that “there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything”. After the hair ball “spoke” to Jim, he told Huck "Yo'ole father doan' know, yit, what he's a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he spec he'll go 'way, en den agin he spec he'll stay. De bes' way is to res' easy en let de ole man take his own way... You gwyne to have considable trouble in yo' life, en considable joy...”(16). This example of a superstition in the novel shows how fear of the unknown makes people like Huck and Jim turn to unconventional methods to make sense of the things happening around them. Huck is characterized as childish. Huck saw the shoe tracks and immediately sought help in a so-called magical hair ball to learn about what his father was doing in

Mark Twain attempts to convey the corruption within society through the adventures that Jim and Huck are confronted with. Twain embodies a set view of conduct that differs from the rest of society within Huck’s character, although he does not fully accept his beliefs to be just. This sets Huck up for difficulties to conform to the standards of society, being that his initial instincts are frowned upon. Twain takes advantage of Huck’s situation and subtly incorporates his own views on society in his present day. It is difficult to alter one’s opinion, let alone the opinion of a whole society, so Twain aims to work in his own beliefs without losing attention of his reader. The moral of the story is obscured in order to communicate these beliefs

In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a variety of people influence Huck’s ideology. From the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson’s religious rhetoric to Pap’s brutal, uncivilized manner, many contrasting ideas shape Huck’s belief system. However, among these people, Tom Sawyer holds the greatest impact over Huck’s actions and mentality because of Huck’s immense admiration for him. Huck’s initial encounters with Tom Sawyer establish Tom as a major component of the ideology Huck maintains throughout his journey. Despite Huck’s skepticism and confusion about Tom’s imaginative schemes, Huck regards Tom’s judgements as the truth and follows all of Tom’s plans.

Through the theme of rebellion against society, Huck demonstrates the importance of thinking for oneself and embodies the idea that adults are not always right. This is highlighted in his noncompliance when it comes to learning the Bible and in the decisions he makes when it comes to Jim, decisions that prove to be both illegal and dangerous. By refusing to conform to standards he does not agree with, Huck relies on his own experiences and inner conscience when it comes to making decisions. As a result, Huck is a powerful vehicle for Mark Twain’s commentary on southern society and

Mark Twain is satirizing the advice young people are given by authoritative figures on different issues in life. The words of wisdom used to guide youth usually promote the same ideals and are repeated so often that in some sense they lose their strength. That does not mean though that the issues they touch upon are not important. Twain uses humor to actually make young people go beyond the banality and conformity and ask questions of importance.

To begin with, religious hypocrisy is brought up with the Widow, The Grangerfords, and The Shepherdsons. In the first chapter, the reader gets a glimpse at how two-faced the widow is since she forces Huck to go to church, teaches him the Bible verses, and forbids him from smoking, saying “it [is] a mean practice and it [isn’t] clean,” (15) although she smokes, herself. She does not realize that the things she’s advising Huck to do, she doesn’t abide by them herself in the first place. Miss Watson, taking the same approach as the widow, teaches Huck religious matter and how one should act if they hope to reach heaven. However, talking so much about heaven and hell and the bible, she owns slaves which condemned her in the bible.