Huck Finn Superstitions

Although Huck is a bit racist to Jim at the beginning of their journey, the negative attitude held by Huck begins to fizzle as their adventure continues on. The more Huck and Jim go through together, the closer the two become. Huck begins to see Jim as a friend and vice versa. By the end of their journey, Huck disagrees with society's idea that blacks are inferior. One example of this is evident when Huck doesn't tell anyone of Jim's whereabouts. Huck doesn't tell anyone because he knows that if he does, Jim will be forced to return to slavery. Instead, Huck chooses to "go to Hell" for his decision. He has shied away from society's acceptance of slavery.

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

Along with Huckleberry’s questioning of heaven and hell in the first chapter, his superstitions come to the forefront. Some examples of Huck's superstitions are in his interpretation of the night sounds as death, and in how he believes the spider burning to death in the flame of his candle is an omen of bad luck. After accidentally killing the spider, Huck attempts a to prevent the bad luck from happening. (I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my

He was not as scared of the bad place as he was with bad luck. Maybe Huck did not understand the importance the bad place meant to people. It turns out he was not the only one scared of bad luck, Jim, Huck’s slave, was also not a fan of bad luck.

Some say that superstition is an impractical way of looking at life but the characters in Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn beg to differ. Examples of superstition are abundant throughout the novel. Allowing characters in a novel to have superstitions makes their lives more realistic and the reading more enjoyable. Huck and Jim’s superstitions cause them grief, help them get through, and sometimes get them into trouble in their lengthy runaway journey. Although both of these characters tend to be quite rational, they quickly become irrational when anything remotely superstitious happens to them. Superstition plays a dual role: it shows that Huck and Jim are child-like in spite of their otherwise

We all struggle to fight against society’s rules. Whether it’s getting up to go to school or obeying a curfew, in some way we all rebel against the expectations of our society. In Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, there is an overwhelming battle against society, especially through its main character, Huckleberry Finn. Though he knows in his heart what he is doing is right, everyone says that he deserves to go to hell for his action.

In Mark Twain’s book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he uses the idea of religion and superstition influences society’s rules for how to live one’s life. Religion is the belief in an overruling power as superstition is believing in the supernatural or the unknown. Both religion and superstition teaches one’s moral values on how to live, although each believe in different ideas. Huckleberry Finn is a child learning to become his own person. He has his own opinions on these ideas which contribute to the choices that he makes in life.

In addition, these superstitions provide freedom from the restraints of civilization, but also bear their own dangers as omens are an acknowledgement of death (Hoffman 331). Despite this harrowing reflection, the omens that Jim teaches to Huck are important in developing Huck as a person and a character. Jim is the most potent source for superstition in the novel, and while some beliefs appear a bit ludicrous, they hold a somewhat real prophecy. An example of this is when Huck carelessly touches a snakeskin, which is one of the worst things to do according to Jim, and introduces a world of bad luck to Jim and himself on their little raft. These omens have a direct role on the plot by heralding dangerous episodes and by teaching Huck said omens, Jim is Huck’s mentor and guide on this treacherous journey towards freedom (Brownell). Being removed from society on the Mississippi, Huck has the time and space to think for himself with the influences of people such as religious Miss Watson and romantic Tom Sawyer. Religion itself is a massive shackle on Huck and he is already averse to it due to the bizarre nature of biblical verses and simply being forced into religion by Miss Watson. Jim as well does not have a strong religious faith and instead places his confidence in his superstitions, which brings back the aforementioned point of superstition drawing Huck and Jim together. They use superstitions to make sense of the world, even if it does not make any. This demonstrates Twain’s derisive tone towards religion by coinciding the ridiculousness of superstition with the equally ridiculous notion of religion itself as it may be viewed in the eyes of an

Still a controversial topic today, is the plight of social prejudice. While the world has made much progress, people struggling to have their rights acknowledged is a constant battle. All people have experienced prejudice at some point in their life, and know that it is easy for society to distort the conscience. This idea is the basis for Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, where protagonist, Huck Finn, experiences a struggle between his deformed conscience, influenced by society, and his sound heart. Huck embarks on an adventure with a runaway slave who never having been “a part of the dominant conventional society ...undistorted by stereotyped social patterns of belief or action,” (Martin 107) teaches Huck how to let go of the biases that have been instilled in him. The budding friendship between Huck and Jim contributes to Huck’s internal struggle between his personal morals and society’s views, ultimately resulting in his sound heart conquering his

Huck is still an immature and doesn’t think of the outcomes of his actions. Tom shows shock when he encounter Huck after believing he was “dead”. He doesn’t have an explanation of something he doesn’t understand so he jumps to the conclusion it has to be superstition. He says to Huck that “I hain’t ever done you no harm. You know that.

Huck puts a snake under Jim’s pillow as a prank, but Jim ends up getting bit. This was very mean, but Huck did not intend any harm to Jim. He just wanted to scare him as a joke. After he found out that the snake bit Jim, Huck feels very bad about this. At another time in the story, Huck and Jim are separated, and Huck comes up to Jim as he is sleeping, and decides to play another joke on him. He tells Jim that there was no storm, and that he never left the raft. Jim realizes that Huck is just trying to make Jim feel dumb, and then gets mad. He says "'All you wuz thinkin 'bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie.” (Jim, page 98) People say that Huck is being mean to him, and treating him like a slave, like property. Huck does not treat Jim with complete respect through the whole story, but when it all comes down, Huck really cares about Jim. Jim is practically a father to Huck. Jim watches out for Huck, such as the time when he told Huck not to look at the dead body that he found on the boat. Huck feels bad for Jim when he gets bit by the snake, and especially when he is enslaved at Aunt Polly’s house. Huck and Tom Sawyer put their lives on the line, and come up with a very detailed plan to break Jim out, and free him from slavery again in the middle of the night. They truly care about Jim and treat him like a person, and a friend. This shows the complete opposite of

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain uses Huck to demonstrate how we make life changing decisions in our everyday lives. These decisions we make are based on what our conscience tells us is the right or wrong thing to do, but ultimately what we have been taught is morally acceptable and unacceptable in society as children and even as adults. Most of these moral lessons are not even taught to us out loud, or practically. They stem from what we hear, see, and witness through our lifetime, and it is these experiences that shape us and make us who we are. Huckleberry Finn throughout this novel goes through a complete moral transformation, making life defining decisions that nobody at his age should have to make.

While they are out on Jackson’s Island, Huck touches a snakeskin with his hand and Jim believes bad luck will come. Days later Huck plays a prank on Jim and puts a rattlesnake he killed in bed with Jim. While in his bed, the rattlesnakes mate was in the bottom too and bites Jim right on his heel. Jim makes him chop of Huck explains, “...he said that handling a snake skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn’t got to the end of it yet.” Jim’s beliefs that this snake skin will cause misfortune further on influence Huck to never want to touch a snakeskin again, and make him prefer another superstition to happen. “Anybody that don't believe yet, that it's foolishness to handle a snake-skin, after all that that snake-skin done for us, will believe it

When the group’s plan goes awry, Jim is lead to believe it is due to bad luck, to which Huck says, “Now you think it’s bad luck; but what did you say when I fetched in the snakeskin that I found on the top of the ridge day before yesterday? You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snakeskin with my hands. Well, here’s your bad luck!” (58). This quote represents Jim’s belief in superstition as Jim thinks the bad luck is brought upon them because Huck had said he touched the snakeskin the day before.

It is the only thing he knows to believe in. He introduces us to a second superstition during breakfast. “I happened to turn over the saltcellar… I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck” (15). The widow stops him before he gets the chance. Later, when Huck finds his father’s tracks in the snow he blames it on the atrocious superstition of spilling the saltcellar. A third superstition learned from Jim taught Huckleberry that handling a serpents skin will bring the worst luck. Huckleberry Finn didn’t believe this at first, although that didn’t last too long. To demonstrate to Jim that this superstition was merely manufactured from fear, Huck found a rattlesnake, killed it, and curled it up at the foot of Jims blanket. “When Jim flung himself down on the blanket while I struck a light the snake’s mate was there, and bit him” (53). This transposed Huckleberry's mind about superstition. As a result he matures to be more and more superstitious as the book progresses. Superstitions infiltrate the life of Huckleberry Finn, a few include shriveled up spiders, spilling salt cellars, along with touching snakeskins. These superstitions may not be real, yet they still have an unquestionable effect on the way