Superstition in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

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.

In addition to Jim's superstitious nature, throughout the novel he also demonstrates gullibility. A good example of this

During the book, Huck hasn’t really experienced what life really was and what you might encounter during times that just come out of anything. Jim is someone that you might call strange and unexpected. When Huck

The relationship between Huckleberry Finn and Jim are central to Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". Huck's relationships with individual characters are unique in their own way; however, his relationship with Jim is one that is ever changing and sincere. As a poor, uneducated boy, Huck distrusts the morals and intentions of the society that treats him as an outcast and fails to protect him from abuse. The uneasiness about society, and his growing relationship with Jim, leads Huck to question many of the teachings that he has received, especially concerning race and slavery. Twain makes it evident that Huck is a young boy who comes from the lowest levels of white society. Huck's father, Pap, is a drunk who disappears for

In Chapter 8 when Huck finds Jim, who escaped from Miss Watson because she was going to sell him down the river. That evening Jim exposes Huck to his knowledge of superstition. Some young birds flew by, and Jim said that it was a sign that it was going to rain. Huck wanted to go catch some of them, but Jim said that if he did that then it would mean death. Jim also said that you mustn’t count that things you are going to have for dinner, or it would bring bad luck, it was also bad luck if you shook the tablecloth after sundown. And if a man had a beehive and that man died the bees must be told about it before sun-up the next morning, or they would die. “Jim said bees won’t sting idiots; but I didn’t believe that, because I had tried them lots of times myself, and they wouldn’t sting me”.

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 also sees how hypocritical they truly are, and, it can be inferred that, Twain wanted them to represent society in the novel. Huck thinks their way of living was ineffective, and that is why he used to sneak out in the middle if the night, skip school, and smoke his pipe. It was difficult for Huck to adjust from an unstructured home, with no training, raised by an alcoholic and abusive father, to two strict, cookie-cutter women in a house with plenty of rules and regulations. After earning a large amount of money as a reward, with his best friend, Tom Sawyer, Huck's abusive alcoholic father, who he calls Pap, comes back to steal his money by kidnapping him, and while Huck is with his father he says, "I didn't see how I ever got to like it so well at the Widow's, where you had to wash, and eat in a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be forever bothering over a book and have old Miss Watson peeking at you all the time" (Twain p. 37). Huck's view on society is one of dissatisfaction and rebellion, as his opinions reveal how imperfect, and unjust society's rules actually are. Especially after hearing that his behavior will determine whether or not he will go to Heaven or Hell scares him a little bit, because he wasn’t taught right from wrong his entire life up until this point. After this Huck's thoughts are, how can a man not be punished by law (his father), for abusing him, but Huck can be reprimanded for harmless things like

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

     In the beginning of the novel, Huck’s views on slavery had been skewed by society and by the civilized Miss Watson’s righteous and moral views. Huck finds it all fun and games when he and his comrade, Tom Sawyer, play a trick on Jim; Tom Sawyer and Huck remove Jim’s hat from his head and place it on the branch above him. When Jim wakes up, he believes he has been bewitched, adding to his dim-witted and brainless appearance. Only later on in the novel does Huck realize what Jim really means to him.

While he was seemingly content, he refused to be sold to a new master in New Orleans. While Huck does not look down upon Jim the way others do, they begin to act as equals in chapters 8 and 9 since society is not there to influence their actions. Jim does not fear Huck turning him in as a runaway slave since Huck is on the run, too. As question 1 references, the two are parallels. They are both running away from society’s expectations of them. Huck feels as though he will be stuck with his father purely based off shared genetics despite the abuse, and Jim is seen as a lowly slave purely because of his skin color. As the novel progresses, Jim is seen less as a slave in the reader’s and Huck’s mind and more as the father figure Huck lacks. While a superstition, Jim tries to protect Huck from any bad omens by warning him against touching the snake skin with his bare hands. He imposes this kind of caring afterthought that Huck has never experienced. In return, Huck is also quite protective of Jim. Towards the end of chapter nine, Huck is canoeing back to their settlement on the island and expresses concern for Jim being caught. He makes, “…Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with the quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a n----- a good ways off,” (Twain). Between chapters eight and nine, Huck begins to genuinely care for

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

We see this become an example when they help each other out by doing what they can do while the other can not, and one for such is Huck dressing as a girl to hear what is happening in their former town. Huck is the one doing this because he is white, not because he is more skilled in remembering or any of the sorts. Though Jim is someone for Huck to look for guidance, and deciding what they should do. He uses Jim’s superstitions many times. One for instance was when they decided where to stash their canoe and supplies. “Jim says if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the traps in the cavern, we could rush there is anybody was to come to the island, and they would never find us without dogs. And besides, he said them little birds had said it was going to rain, and I didn’t want the things to get wet?” (50). This became a turning point, as Huck seeks advice from Jim. This common goal of not getting caught helped this change undergo, as they see that hiding the canoe would make the searchers believe the place was

Throughout all these situations that Huck goes through, Jim has supported him, even when Jim was not with Huck at every time. Jim first met up with Huck on the island. Jim escaped Widow Douglas’s home because he was to be sold down south, which would separate Jim from his family forever. Jim is hands down the most important person to Huck throughout the novel, putting himself in a category as one of Huck’s new family members. Jim has been associated as Huck’s father figure. During their time together, Jim and Huck make up a sort of alternative family in an alternative place, apart from society. Huck escaped from society for adventure and a new life, while Jim has escaped from society so that he wouldn’t be separated from his family by being sold down south. Jim is based off of his love, whether it’s for his family or his growing love for Huck. Jim was thought of by Huck as a stupid, ignorant slave in the beginning of the novel, but as Huck spends more time with Jim, Huck realizes that Jim has a different kind of knowledge based off of his years as well as his experiences with love. In the incidents of the floating house and Jim’s snakebite, Jim uses his knowledge to benefit both of them but also seeks to protect Huck. Jim is less imprisoned by conventional wisdom than Huck,

Jim is also a relatively flat character. He goes through the novel with very little change in his character. He is always superstitious, but also is very accepting of people. One example of his superstitions is, “And [Jim] said that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn’t got to the end of it yet.” (Twain, 64.) Jim always adheres to his superstitions, and in a way they govern his life. Even when Tom and Huck are attempting to set Jim free near the end of the book, Jim goes along with all their crazy machinations. This is similar to his superstitions, because he is willing to do silly things, since he believes they are essential to gaining freedom.

As evidenced in the introductory instances regarding death, Huck’s morality is defective and his sympathy is missing. Perhaps, Huck’s flaws are due to his close contact with the iconic delinquent Tom Sawyer, who is likely corroding Huck’s ethics. Consequently, when Huck bonds with his new partner-in-crime, Jim, a stark juxtaposition is evidenced between the ideals of Tom and Jim. However, luckily “youth is a time of greater potential for change than any other stage of life”, and Jim’s positive influence proves beneficial (Trites 53) . Specifically, Jim is extraordinarily superstitious and attaches a copious amount of meaning to just about everything, even a measly snake skin (Twain 162). Of course, this means that Jim does not completely disregard the significance of death and importance of sympathy, as Tom and his mischievous mates do. Consequently, Jim “has proven himself as a morally admirable figure” (Bollinger). As a result, after prolonged exposure to Jim, Huck starts to exude more concern for the life of others, as evidenced in quite a few scenarios that take place on his and Jim’s journey.