Superstitions in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

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.

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

In Huckleberry Finn there are several themes. There are themes of racism and slavery, civilized society, survival, water imagery, and the one I will be discussing, superstition ( SparkNotes Editors). Superstition is a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation (“Merriam-Webster”). Superstition was a very popular theme in Huckleberry Finn that you saw throughout the story. Huck was somewhat superstitious, but Jim speaks a wide range of superstition and folk tales. In the story it makes Jim seem as if he is unintelligent, when really his superstitions and beliefs come true and shows he

In the appropriately titled novel, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", by author, Mark Twain, a young boy, named, Huckleberry Finn's life is completely changed. The story is basically that, Huck is sent to live with his strict relatives that try to conform him into someone he isn't, but, sequentially ends up traveling down the Mississippi River, with an escaped slave, Jim. As the novel progresses, Jim and Huck develop an extremely close friendship, which makes him change his views on slavery. Despite numerous chances, Huck never turns Jim in, because of his new outlook on slavery. Although slavery is a main theme in the book, it is not the only one. Because, author, Mark Twain creates a social critique by juxtaposing the

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

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.

Superstition, excessively credulous belief in and reverence for supernatural beings. Throughout this novel, the beliefs and superstitions of both black and white characters are showcased. How Mark Twain portrayal of both cultures contributes to the overall meaning of work is by using superstitions in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to present that violent beliefs people have, such as the color of a human beings skin, defines who they truly are, this prevents people from leaving their own comfort zones and growing up as a person.

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

Knock on wood; an apple a day keeps the doctor away; a rabbit’s foot is good luck— these are all expressions heard on a daily basis. Throughout life, society has based many of its actions on superstitious beliefs. A superstition is a belief in something without any factual basis or proof behind it. It can be used to explain events, or for some people, even predict the future. Mark Twain is famous for his criticism of people’s absurd use of superstitions as explanations for unusual phenomenons. In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain satirizes the superstitious beliefs of the time period and how heavily they were relied upon in everyday life to explain

In the end, Huck treats Jim as a friend. He wrestles with it a while and the whole idea upsets him greatly. Society tells him Jim belongs to his owner as property, thus giving Jim his freedom is stealing and lying. Huck cannot bring himself to turn Jim into the authorities. He treats Jim like the person he is and not as property. At this point, the reader is shown Huck’s bravery. He is willing to live against society’s rules and even “go to hell” in order to live in a way he believes is truly right

Some people may think that overcoming society's class system is impossible, while others make an effort every day to fight the prejudice put in front of them. There are many views on the issue of social bias, but one that truly stands out above the rest is legendary author Mark Twain's, through his novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Throughout his piece, Twain sprinkles hints on his standpoint, but it is only after the reader has completed Twain's story that they can really understand his philosophy. When looking at his portrayal of both Huckleberry Finn and Jim, it becomes much clearer what Twain has to say on this issue, and he continues to voice his standing through these characters and their struggles throughout the entirety of the book. When carefully observed, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn tells its readers how society can fit a character into their own mold, how different a person can be from certain social ideas, and what's wrong with having these preconceived stereotypes.

Huck Finn Superstition Nick Thorndike 4/14/16 English According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary religion is, "the service and worship of God or the supernatural.” Superstition, is defined as,"an irrational abject attitude of mind towards the supernatural, nature or God resulting from such a belief". Mark Twain uses the polarities of both Religion and Superstition throughout Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain's use of superstition and religion as polarities in Huckleberry Finn is shown through his creations of characters throughout the book, such as Huck and Jim.

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,

Throughout the first part of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the superstitious belief of good and bad luck is mentioned often. In the beginning of the