Huckleberry Superstitions Quotes

In the beginning of this Huckleberry Finn, Huck was an uncivilized and ignorant boy. When he moved in with the Widow Douglas, she "allowed she would [him]" but he did not want to stay with her because she was so "regular and decent... in all her ways" (2). He did not have what most people would consider morals. He was so against things moral and civilized that

In Huckleberry Finn, Huck comes from the lower levels of white society, having a father who is a drunk who disappears constantly. Widow Douglas adopts him and attempts to reform him, although she has difficulties. Huck does not accept the ways of society, and often tells Widow that he would rather go live in hell for a change of scenery. The Widow tries to teach him how to read and tries to make him religious. Although the Widow’s efforts do finally teach

Huck, who is a child in a book, has a lot of room for development. In the beginning, he was taught to follow the rules of society like practicing Catholicism and refusing to associate with slaves. However, during Huck’s journey with Jim, he learns a valuable lesson about respecting people based on their character, despite what he was taught by Widow Douglas, Miss Watson, and Tom Sawyer. During the first few days of his journey, he pulls pranks on Jim, like attempting to trick him into thinking that getting lost in the fog was all a dream. However, later on in his journey, he refuses to follow the rules of society in order to save Jim. He even says “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” when he chooses not to tell Miss Watson Jim’s whereabouts (Twain 214). Jim in turn sees Huck as a great friend as well, thus showing how Huck is now seen as a

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

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.

Although he predicts society will deem him to be "a low down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum," he prefers to be shunned and to risk punishment and shame for the sake of freeing Jim (Twain 43). Clearly, Huck's fondness for Jim is evident when Huck intends to send a letter to Miss Watson returning Jim but chooses to rip it to save him instead. Huck responds, "‘I'll right, then, I'll go to hell'- and he tore it up" (Twain 214). Huck accepts his rebellious nature and terrible fate to hell as he escapes from civilized society and into a place driven by his instincts. Jim's desire for freedom puts Huck in a moral dilemma because he must decide whether to follow his innate sense of morality or the restrictive guidelines of society.

Huck absolutely hated how they are forcing him to follow a bunch of rules. The Widow Douglas teaches Huck the Bible, which he doesn 't mind but he doesn 't like how she 's forcing it on him. One of the rules was Huck was not aloud to smoke. Miss Watson told Huck that he had to get an education. She tried to teach him how to spell but he had no interest. She also gave him lectures on good behavior because she said that 's how he would go to heaven. He told her he didn 't believe that, he thought hell sounded more fun than heaven, so he 'd rather go to hell instead. Even though he doesn 't like either one of the women, he does like Widow Douglas more than Miss Watson. She gave him encouragement even though she had strict rules. And she took care of him, like buying him clothes even though he didn’t want them. Huck respects Widow Douglas because she gives him good advice and is not so harsh on him about certain things. Huck ran away, and they sent Tom to search for him. Tom convinced him to come home, but he still complained about having to wear new clothes and eat only when the bell rang for dinner. He didn 't like their rules because he wasn 't used to it growing up with his Pap. One of the examples is that his Pap forbid him from going to school, yet they want him to be

It turns that Huck was not alone. Just the fact to somebody that they have bad luck can very well get in their head. And in the story it is also very clear that Huck’s slave, Jim, is also very superstitious. Of course, he was not near as bad as Huck, yet he still had a dose of it also. A prime example of this is when Jim was apparently bewitched and put in a trance and rode all over the state and country (Twain 6). However Jim was never really bewitched, it was just a joke played all along by Huck. Another great example of superstition is when Jim began asking the hairball questions about Pap, Huck’s Father, and at first it was not answering. Jim told Huck that in order to get an answer he needed to give it money, therefore Huck gave Jim a quarter and then Jim starts telling Huck all the answers he’s been asking (Twain 18). The importance of this shows a little of Jim’s superstition, and it also shows the way Jim sees things different than Huck. It is clear that Jim and Huck both have the same idea about superstition, but they process it in different ways. Huck more or less takes it to heart, rather than Jim, takes it more as if it

Huck feels terrible because he cannot please both voices of his conscience. Huckleberry Finn feels as though society is right, and he is wrong. At first, he begins to write a letter to Miss Watson to return Jim, but then ends up destroying the letter and deciding to help free Jim. Specifically, in the novel, Huck says, "All right, then I'll go to hell," right as he tore up the letter. This indicates that

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

Twain uses colloquial diction to convey Huck’s struggle between the values of his southern upbringing, which urge him to return Jim, and his strong friendship and loyalty with Jim, which encourage him to protect the runaway. Although Huck lacks education, Huck interprets the laws in ways that are morally sound, an interpretation that most educated people fail to understand, while they blindly accept the injustice of slavery. Throughout the novel, Twain makes use of uneducated diction and syntax to convey an ironic contrast between Huck’s ability to discern between moral and immoral actions and his lack of education.

He like the majority of the Deep South’s population was forced to submit to popular religion in the form of Christianity, being racist and not being able to criticize the institution of slavery, as well as acting like a “proper” boy and being civilized with manors, rules, and restrictions. However, he is the polar opposite of the ideals expressed by his society. Huck is forced to reside with Widow Douglas, he describes the experience in the first chapter, “She took me… allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time … I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn't. She said… I must try to not do it any more.” (Twain, 2). In this particular environment, Huck is forcefully civilized by the Widow Douglas as well as Miss Watson. This essentially shows an indirect form of slavery in which Huck is forced to do as society and his elders dictate regardless of what he believes in which many of us are also subject to. This enslaves him and leads him to decide that he needs to relocate himself as far away from society as possible. Therefore, he forges his death and runs away meeting Jim on the way. This idea of Huck being controlled by society influences him through the novel, for instance he thinks about turning Jim in because it is wrong to steal since Jim is

Widow Douglas forces Huck into white society standards by making him wear new clothes, come when called, pray before dinner, and listen about Mosses after dinner (para. 3 and 4). Widow Douglas wants Huck to be “civilized” as she correlates being well-behaved with being able to enter heaven. She believes Huck not complying with her rules determines if Huck will being go to “the bad place” or heaven. The level of civilization and respectability is based off of religion. Because of Huck’s different beliefs and morals, Widow Douglas feels it is her responsibility to “civilize” him in order to change him into a polite, well-mannered individual. Freedom to Huck can be defined as liberation from the corrupt white society represented by Miss Watson's Home as illustrated in Mark Twain’s satirical novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Widow Douglas chooses to “civilize” Huck in which he responds by getting into his old clothing that makes him feel “free and satisfied” (para. 2). Huck views society standards as idiotic and senseless. He prefers defying society because of the freedom he gets to express his individuality. To Huck, his freedom is the equivalence to his happiness. When Huck is describing the woods, he personifies it to be someone who understands his and accepts him for who he really is (para. 8). Huck feels the most free when he is in the woods which is the antithesis of civilization and

Often times Huck found himself in a moral dilemma on whether to do what society instilled in him or to do what he thinks should be done. Huck betrayed those feelings of “what society would want” him to do in order to be a good friend to Jim, putting his own self up at risk again for Jim. Jim was being held captive by Huck’s current host and Huck, abandoning his duties of his superior race and being a good Christian, as the Widow called it Huck suddenly has an epiphany “All right then, I'll go to hell!” as he goes to “steal Jim out of slavery” (212). Seeing the situation through Huck’s perspective it gives the reader every little detail that goes into his thought process in his decision making. These types of actions were considered wrong by society at that time and place but Huck sets that all aside and does what he feels is the right thing. Most of the time Huck has to think on his feet making the decision making process even more difficult, like the time when Huck was going to give Jim up as a runaway slave. “Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on, s’pose you’d ‘a’ done right and give Jim up, would you feel better than what you do now? No, says I, I’d feel bad---I’d feel just the same way I do now” (91). Even through Huck’s dialect you can see him argue with himself on what the right thing to is, but he throws out what society would do and does what his heart tells him. Through Huck arguing

Illustrated in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain reveals Huck’s character as honest and transparent; Widow Douglas wants to civilize Huck because he has no manners and she wants to save his soul. Huck portrays to the audience that he is truthful and honest. In Widow Douglas view Huck should be respected by white society which means having to wear new clothes and having to come to supper when called. Huck tries to defy the norms of society by running away from it. As a result of leaving society Huck feels free (para. 2). Huck feels free from society because he feels like society was changing him into someone he is not (para. 2). Society to Huck is condoning slavery and racism. Huck acts “uncivilized” according to Ms. Watson because Huck can’t spell nor behave properly and she is concerned that he will not go to the good place (para. 6). Huck doesn’t want to go to the good place because its is full of white society. Ms. Watson’s interpretation of the good place reveals the ignorance of her society because she believes that in heaven would be a great place with people playing harps and singing all the time (para. 7). Huck doesn’t want to go to heaven because if his best friend wasn’t going he wasn’t going either and he wanted to be with him.