Classics and the Western Canon discussion

This topic is for discussion of Chapters 1 - 11. No spoilers, please!

What a jolt to go straight from the stylized voice of the characters of Aeschuylus to the so-natural and candid (I think!) voice of young Huck Finn! Like a cold glass of water to the face. I can hardly imagine two such opposite narrative approaches, so it's thrilling to read them back to back. I like Twain's sly digs at the "religious" Miss Watson. Am so glad we're off and running and I can't wait to hear everyone's views, but I'm really enjoying the book so far.

Our adventure with Adventures of Huckleberry Finnactually begins in the world of Tom Sawyer. By the end of the section, Huck has entered a much different and far darker world. Tom’s robber gang play-acting sets the stage for Huck and Jim, in different ways, to find themselves genuinely at risk.

Not only do we learn what the “sivilized” life in a mid 19th century river town is like, we see a fair amount of conversation about religion (and superstition) and values.

In a book which will have a lot to say about writing and art and high & low culture, we greet an unprecedented narrative voice, and we get to draw our first impressions about Huck and about how reliable he may prove to be as narrator.

We meet the three adults who are the most important influences on him. Each is trying to shape him differently. From them he has drawn conclusions about himself and his place in society.

We witness Huck’s relationship with Jim, the Widow Douglas's slave. And get our first opportunity to assess Twain’s treatment of his African American character. A fully drawn character? A stereotype? Or a projection? Remember, no spoilers, but feel free to share first reactions to both characters.

Over on the thread about Twain's other writing, I've posted some things about The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for those who may wish to refresh themselves about that book.

It strikes me that there are multiple ways to read Huckleberry Finn, and I hope that over the coming weeks we will approach it from all of these directions—though the last couple will probably need to be deferred for a couple of weeks before they can be fully debated.

Literary. This is obvious for a book group titled Classics of the Western Canon. Huckleberry Finn is a radical departure from conventional writing. What is Mark Twain trying to accomplish? Indeed, what genre is this book: social realism, satire, boys’ book, bildungsroman, epic, something else? How well he succeeds must weigh heavily in assessing literary merit.

Historical Document. I heard a Cornell professor say, “Political correctness has banned Huckleberry Finn from the English Department, but he is alive and well in the History Department.” Twain insisted he drew all of his characters from people he encountered growing up in Hannibal, Missouri and working as a pilot on the Mississippi. A fascinating look at the epicenter of America during a period of tremendous historical change.

Iconic. Even people who haven’t read the book know who Huck and Jim are and the basics of the plot. In what ways does the book illuminate our national myth? Does it sentimentalize and play into aspects of that myth or does it interrogate it?

Literary BiographicalWho wrote this book and what does it tell us about him? I put it this way because Mark Twain is very much a construct himself. So it seems fair to investigate which parts are Twain and which parts are Clemens. Or do we feel the text is the text and biographical details are irrelevant?

Critical controversy. Few books have sparked as much critical and public disagreement. Some of the more prominent ones: its morality; race; gender.
I am sure there are other ways to read it as well.

I was struck by something Toni Morrison wrote in an essay. She acknowledged that her first encounter with the book as a child was painful. But she says that she has been drawn back to it over the years and finds new layers with each reading of this “amazing troubling” book.

I am eager to learn the layers of meaning this group finds in it.

I can't think of any better place to start the discussion than wit the NOTICE. This is obviously not a serious warning (I have been teaching all the forbidden clauses for years and have not been prosecuted or shot). In undertaking this discussion, we have all tacitly agreed to ignore the ordinance of the author.

My question is: Was he serious, or was this addition a ploy to tempt his readers by setting the cookie jar in plain view? I suppose a third option would be that Twain was giving himself plausible deniability since so much of the depth of Huck Finn was not politically correct in his day--but Twain never seemed to have a problem offending people with his wit, so I doubt this is the case.

I have not read much of Mark Twain, in fact I think Tom Sawyer was the only other thing I have read by him, and that was years and years and years ago. The only thing I really remember is painting the fence.

I was quite surprised when I first started reading by the humor within the book, and I quite enjoy the dark edge upon the humor. I found that scene when they were forming their gang of outlaws was quite hysterical. There are also touches of humor in the relationship between Huck and his drunken and abusive father. Twain takes subjects which could be tragic, and could be easily quite disturbing and depressing and he puts a whimsical spin onto it.

I think the question of the way in which Twain's view of African Americans is an interesting one to consider within this story. It seems to be that the characters are presented in a stereotypical manner, and the version of the book which I am reading has illustrations in it, and the characters of Jim and other slaves who appear in the story are drawn in a way that would be considered offensive today. But is this done as a projection of the prejudice of other people? It seems that the relationship which is formed between Huck and Jim and the way they are bonded together with a common cause puts them in a position of being on equal footing, and Huck himself does not appear to hold any prejudices which suggests a more positive view of African-Americans, in spite of the characters being portrayed in a way which could be seen as having a negative slant.

Zeke wrote: "Our adventure with Adventures of Huckleberry Finn actually begins in the world of Tom Sawyer. ..."

A number of critics I've read discuss the relationship of Tom and Huck in Tom Sawyeras a parallel to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, so I was interested to see Tom mentioning DonQ as a justification for the way his gang should act. Just as DonQ read too many romances and went off the deep end acting them out, so Tom reads too many adventure stories and is acting them out with his gang, though in a child rather than, as with Don Q, an adult way. Huck does seem more a Sancho character, more practical, going along with Tom while not really believing in Tom's romantic ideas.

It will be interesting to see Sancho getting away from DonQ and being able to engage in his own adventures (which, after all, is the title of the book).

M wrote: "What a jolt to go straight from the stylized voice of the characters of Aeschuylus to the so-natural and candid (I think!) voice of young Huck Finn!"

I think that's one of the things that makes this a uniquely American book. While the European novelists were writing mostly in third person (which Twain also did in other books), or if they did write in first person wrote in a very standardized voice, Twain puts forth a narrator who is uneducated, barely sivilized (f that), and writes in a dialect probably unfamiliar to most of his readers. It's a daring departure from literary expectations and norms. Let's discuss as we proceed how well it does and doesn't work.

Zeke wrote: "I heard a Cornell professor say, “Political correctness has banned Huckleberry Finn from the English Department, but he is alive and well in the History Department."

In his lectures on Twain, Stephen Railton says that the opposition to HF based on his presentation of blacks wasn't an issue until after World War II. The book was banned early on, perhaps most notably by the Concord, Mass. Library Committee, but it was because its "rough, ignorant dialect, ... systematic use of bad grammar and an employment of inelegant expressions" was considered a bad model for the young, and Huck was a dangerous person for children to read about.

In addition to the reference to Don Quixote, I also found in this section two fairly clear references to Robinson Crusoe. One, of course, was the "Egad, I am not alone on this island" discovery of the footprint in RC and the fresh ashes in HF. The other is the salvaging from the house floating down the river, reminiscent of Crusoe's trips to the ship to get tools for his survival.

@Silver and others: I posted a synopsis of TS on another thread. The reason I mention this is because the incident that shows Tom at the height of his "powers" occurs after the boys have run away to Jackson's Island. (The excerpt I posted.) They learn that the town thinks they are all dead. Then they sneak back and attend their own "funeral."

Significant to our discussion for two reasons. First, we learn something about Huck's status in the town and how he came to live with the Widow and Polly:

Aunt Polly, Mary, and the Harpers threw themselves upon their restored ones, smothered them with kisses and poured out thanksgivings, while poor Huck stood abashed and uncomfortable, not knowing exactly what to do or where to hide from so many unwelcoming eyes. He wavered, and started to slink away, but Tom seized him and said:

"Aunt Polly, it ain't fair. Somebody's got to be glad to see Huck."

"And so they shall. I'm glad to see him, poor motherless thing!" And the loving attentions Aunt Polly lavished upon him were the one thing capable of making him more uncomfortable than he was before.

But second, and perhaps more significant, the fantasy underlying Tom Sawyer is nostalgia and the belief that one can return to a sentimentalized childhood. In effect, Tom cheats death! There is no greater human wish.

Notice, that in HF, Huck stages his own death and then escapes to Jackson's Island. I think the mirror imagery is intentional. What remains to be seen is what Twain will do with it. Will this book be the continuation of boys' adventure stories? Or will Huck's "death" prefigure something darker?

I am finding Huck's relationship with Jim somewhat confusing. He can be almost viciously unkind, as with the tricks he and Tom play on the sleeping Jim and the snake in his bed. But he can also be almost parental, as when he feeds the almost starving Jim, and when he rushes back to save him from Loftus.

Everyman wrote: "I am finding Huck's relationship with Jim somewhat confusing. He can be almost viciously unkind, as with the tricks he and Tom play on the sleeping Jim and the snake in his bed. But he can also b..."

To me it seems more a confusion within Huck himself. There is what I think of as the Tom influence (the childish game playing) but I think Huck also has a more grown up side to him that I didn't feel with Tom. I have recently read the whole book and am not sure what happens when, but there is also a conflict of what Huck feels towards Jim and how society says he is supposed to treat him.

Everyman wrote: "I am finding Huck's relationship with Jim somewhat confusing. He can be almost viciously unkind, as with the tricks he and Tom play on the sleeping Jim and the snake in his bed. But he can also b..."

But is not playing pranks just typical boy behavior? I do not find it all that strange that on the one hand he would play tricks upon Jim and yet still befriend him and assist him when he is in need of help.

I do not think the pranks he plays can be taken as a sign of dislike towards Jim nor of a sign that he is at root a cruel person.

Friends play seemingly cruel jokes on each other all the time particularly at a young age.

Julie wrote: "Everyman wrote: "I am finding Huck's relationship with Jim somewhat confusing. He can be almost viciously unkind, as with the tricks he and Tom play on the sleeping Jim and the snake in his bed. ..."

I think that is an interesting point about Huck being more grown than Tom is, it reminds me of the scene when they were playing outlaws, but Huck was disappointed in the fact that it was not real. He could not understand Tom's pretending when they went on a raid of the picnic. Huck could not see the fantasy of the game, but seemed to things in a more literal way.

In this it seems he has grown out of such childhood games because they do not hold the charm of imagination for him and he can see through the veil to the truth of the matter and is left unsatisfied.

I agree. Even adults play stupid pranks on each other sometimes. What happened with the snake though, was that Huck just didn't think about what COULD happen. Typical kid.

Everyman wrote: "I am finding Huck's relationship with Jim somewhat confusing. He can be almost viciously unkind, as with the tricks he and Tom play on the sleeping Jim and the snake in his bed. But he can also b..."

I found this quite realistic. Kids can be very cruel, even to their friends. It also humanises Huck in a way.

Everyman wrote: and Huck was a dangerous person for children to read about
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This is my first time reading HF. Only a few months ago I read The Prince and the Pauper for a f2f book club.

I found the dialects in both books a bit difficult to read. HF much more of course. I understand the need for the various dialects, but I have to be honest, I am not a fan of books with that have a lot of that. That is one reason I didn't like the classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

One of the things that immediately struck me was HF's smoking.

Zeke wrote: Notice, that in HF, Huck stages his own death and then escapes to Jackson's Island. ."
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The text I am reading has some footnotes. They mentioned to notice how many times in the novel Huck says he wishes he were dead. An odd thing for a child to say. I don't know what it means. But I thought I would mention it.

Everyman wrote: "I am finding Huck's relationship with Jim somewhat confusing. He can be almost viciously unkind, as with the tricks he and Tom play on the sleeping Jim and the snake in his bed. But he can also b..."
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I think the relationship with Jim shows how HF is maturing and starting to think things through for himself. He is working out his feelings for Jim and how that differs from the societal norms. As with a lot of things in life, it's two steps forward and one back.

Also considering the pressures of society to fit in, especially in ones teens, I think HF is quite remarkable in challenging authority and the social norms.

Patrice: Twain's wife was a strong abolitionist. And don't forget that the book opens with a lesson on Moses, the man who led the slaves to freedom.

The Book of Exodus was a favorite of slaves because of Moses and the liberation of the Israelites. (By the way, as you know, Moses escapes in an arc on a river!

However, Exodus was also a favorite of slave owners. They were partial to Exodus 21.

1"Now these are the)ordinances which you are to set before them:

2"If you buya Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment.

3"If he comes alone, he shall go out alone; if he is the husband of a wife, then his wife shall go out with him.

4"If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall go out alone.

5"But (C)if the slave plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man,'

6then his master shall bring him to [a]God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.

7"(D)If a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free (E)as the male slaves do.

8"If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He does not have authority to sell her to a foreign people because of his unfairness to her.

9"If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters.

10"If he takes to himself another woman, he may not reduce her food, her clothing, or (F)her conjugal rights.

11"If he will not do these three things for her, then she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

Julie wrote: "Everyman wrote: "I am finding Huck's relationship with Jim somewhat confusing. He can be almost viciously unkind, as with the tricks he and Tom play on the sleeping Jim and the snake in his bed. ..."

I agree that the conflict is within Huck, but this coincides with the Twain's stereotypical characterization of Jim. Just as Huck uses society's example for his initial treatment of Jim, so Twain uses society's stereotype to give us our first impressions. This story is told completely from the eyes of an uneducated Huck so that we can experience it in an uneducated and innocent manner. It is only when we step back and look at the progression of the story and Huck's experience that we can find any meaning.

Everyman: I am finding Huck's relationship with Jim somewhat confusing. He can be almost viciously unkind, as with the tricks he and Tom play on the sleeping Jim and the snake in his bed.

Silver: In this it seems he has grown out of such childhood games because they do not hold the charm of imagination for him and he can see through the veil to the truth of the matter and is left unsatisfied.

To me, Huck seems to admire Tom. For example,when he plots his own "death" he notes that Tom couldn't have done it better, or something like that. But Huck's trick seems different from Tom's prank--certainly in its outcome, which is very much from the threatening real world not the harmless play world.

Zeke wrote: "Everyman: I am finding Huck's relationship with Jim somewhat confusing. He can be almost viciously unkind, as with the tricks he and Tom play on the sleeping Jim and the snake in his bed.

Silver: ..."

Yes, that is quite an interesting point. Huck seems to idolize Tom and luck up to him, in spite of the fact that Tom seems to be more childish than Huck. But in Huck's efforts to try and be like Tom and try and do things he think Tom would do, or how Tom would do them, Hucks own actions seem to have much more real world implications.

Patrice: I think Tom has been civilized, Huck has not. That's the core difference between them.

But does anyone else agree that Huck seems to be adjusting reasonably well to the civilizing given where he started from? "At first I hated school but by-and-by I got so I could stand it." Indeed the hiding he got for playing hooky, "done me good and cheered me up." And we learn when Pap comes that he has even won a prize in school "for learning my lessons good."

Clearly Pap wants to keep Huck down at the bottom of society almost as low as the slaves. Polly and the Widow have different parenting styles but Polly tells him he is making slow but good progress.

I hope Patrice will share some of her Rosseau knowledge with us as we go along in the book. But, to paraphrase Huck, to me it seems like a bit of a "stretcher" to see him as a symbol of natural man at this point in the book.

Zeke wrote: "Patrice: I think Tom has been civilized, Huck has not. That's the core difference between them.

But does anyone else agree that Huck seems to be adjusting reasonably well to the civilizing given ..."

Huck seems to be able to adapt to any given situation he is placed in. In fact he even comes for a time to enjoy the life he lived with his Pap in spite of the fact that he was being held prisoner there.

But when given the opportunity and choice he chooses a state of absolute freedom, to be bond in no way by the rules or physical restraints of other people. I think if plopped into the middle of any situation he would probably come around to be content enough in it, but he makes the choice for himself to live in a natural state and at this point in the book does not show signs of regretting his choice or feeling any sort of remorse for the things he has left behind.

Patrice wrote: "Well, I'm behind in the reading but I'll give it a shot.

Rousseau wrote an essay called "Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men". The text was written in 1754 in response to a ..."


I don't know who Rousseau is, but these are some interesting thoughts. Especially since "civilized" is generally thought of as being preferable to "uncivilized". Thanks for posting!

Silver wrote: "Huck seems to be able to adapt to any given situation he is placed in."

This is what struck me as the most remarkable thing about this kid. Nothing has ever been predictable in his life, to say the least, and so he's learned to take things as they come to a really admirable extent. School, sivilization? Well, okay, I can get used to that. Prisoner of drunken, odious dad? Well, it has it's good sides.

But the most impressive instance where he shows this trait is in living with Jim. No doubt Huck grew up like any other poor white kid in his views of the slavery and the black race, but when he finds Jim on "his" island, Huck goes with the flow once again, and right away he seems to act with Jim as he would with anyone else, playing tricks on him included.

The other thing that strikes me so much is that Huck is what we would call today an abused child, yet he is an amazingly mentally healthy kid for all that. I have to keep reminding myself how young -- 12! -- he is. But I find myself looking up to him the same way he (endearingly) looks up to silly old Tom.

Great catch on the Cervantes Patrice.

Don Quixote was revolutionary as was Huckleberry Finn. In Life on the Mississippi Twain praised it for having: "swept the world's admiration for the medieval chivalry-silliness out of existance." Then, he lamented, Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe restored it.

Twain hated the romantic novels of Walter Scott and others. More on that later.

As a side note, he also recommended it to his wife-to-be Olivia Langdon, but not until warning her that, "neither it nor Shakespeare are proper books for virgins to read until some hand has culled them of their grossness."

Silver wrote: "I do not think the pranks he plays can be taken as a sign of dislike towards Jim nor of a sign that he is at root a cruel person. "

I agree about the hat trick. But I think the dead rattlesnake, especially after it was clear that Jim was scared about the snakeskin, seems to me more than just a prank, and verges on cruelty. Although that may be a result of my own fear of snakes, and in Twain's day maybe they were more common and not reacted to as strongly. But if I ever put a curled up snake on the foot of my wife's bed, I would be lucky to be sharing that bed again for the next twelve months. If ever.

Everyman wrote: "Silver wrote: "I do not think the pranks he plays can be taken as a sign of dislike towards Jim nor of a sign that he is at root a cruel person. "

I agree about the hat trick. But I think the d..."

To me the snake incident was not much different than the TV show Scare Tactics today, in which friends and family members set up their loved ones to terrify them out of their minds all in the name of fun.

And though it may have been mean-spirited in nature I think that for Huck he really only meant it as a prank, scaring people is fun and hard to resist the temptation when it arises.

My grandfather was always terrified of snakes and one time, I cannot remember who did it, but one of us in the family threw a rubber snake at him.

It was perhaps a mean thing to do, but it was done out of cruelty or with the intent of truly being cruel it was done for amusement and because it was pretty hysterical.

The remorse he felt when the outcome turned out to be more serious than he had intended I think shows that he was not trying to be cruel he just thought it would be harmless fun.

Silver: "The remorse he felt when the outcome turned out to be more serious than he had intended I think shows that he was not trying to be cruel he just thought it would be harmless fun."

From a literary standpoint, I think it's interesting that something that was meant to be "harmless fun" turned out to have such serious consequences. Tom Sawyer is all about harmless fun, usually with an eye to humor. Here, we have an incident that was meant to be a prank, but turns out endangering Jim's life. I think it's also notable that Huck takes Jim much more seriously after this. The dead snake incident is really based on Huck's disbelief in the bad luck of handling a snakeskin. He means to gloat over his perceived victory in having had such good luck right after handling a snakeskin. Then, it backfires. The voice of the older, wiser Huck who narrates the story connects the rattlesnake bite not only to his own foolishness in putting the dead snake in Jim's bed, but to his handling of the original snake skin:

Huck: "You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snake-skin with my hands. Well, here's your bad luck! We've raked in all this truck and eight dollars, besides...."
Jim: "Never you mind, honey, never you mind. don't you git too peart. It's a-comin'. Mind I tell you, it's a-comin'."
Narrator Huck: "It did come, too."

Nor does Huck hesitate to comply with Jim's odd request that he chop off the snake's head, throw it away, skin the body, cook a piece, give it to Jim to eat, and then take off the rattle and tie it around Jim's wrist.

As regards Huck's reliability as a narrator, I think he employs good folk storytelling tradition (and embellishment), at least some of the time. I think Mark Twain gives us a fairly clear hint of this at the end of Chapter 10:

"...The first thing we done was to bait one of the big hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a cat-fish that was as big as a man, being being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two hundred pounds. We couldn't handle him, of course; he would a flung us into Illinois."

I could be wrong, but as far as I'm aware, not even the Mississippi River grows catfish that big.

Patrice wrote: "As for language, here's another interesting comparison.

Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter only 35 years before HF was published.

Hester Prynne: "Nay, mother, I have told all I know. Ask yond..."

The difference here is that Hawthorne was portraying a 17th century Puritan dialect probably based reading works from that period, while Twain was copying contemporary dialects which he had the advantage of having heard.

I believe 300 years ago children did talk like little adults and, sadly, had considerably better vocabularies than the most adults today.

Audrey wrote: "As regards Huck's reliability as a narrator, I think he employs good folk storytelling tradition (and embellishment), at least some of the time. I think Mark Twain gives us a fairly clear hint of ..."

I think Huck's reliability is suspect, but his presence as narrator is tremendous. The first thing Huck tells us is that Mark Twain told some "stretchers" in that last book -- but this one is his, Huck's book, effectively removing Mark Twain from the telling of the story. It's a brilliant narrative device, and it's completely effective. For me, this is one of the greatest opening paragraphs in literature.

M wrote: "This is what struck me as the most remarkable thing about this kid. Nothing has ever been predictable in his life, to say the least, and so he's learned to take things as they come to a really admirable extent. "

He is, without doubt, at least so far in the book, a laid back survivor.

Audrey wrote: "Silver: "The remorse he felt when the outcome turned out to be more serious than he had intended I think shows that he was not trying to be cruel he just thought it would be harmless fun."

From a ..."

That is an interesting point, the incident of the snake in a way validates Jim for Huck. It is also interesting the way in which Huck seems to laugh at Jim's superstitions and yet at the same time we have evidence that Huck holds suspensions of his own.

As the example when he spills the salt and is scolded for making a mess when he is about to toss it over his shoulder.

I find the superstitions which persist throughout the story to be quite interesting. I really enjoy reading about all the different signs and omens which are presented as I have always been interesting in that sort of thing.

I wonder, as this has come up more than once throughout this discussion and seems to be an imperative part of this story, what is the significance, what is Twain trying to convey in the way in which the seriousness of this story juxtaposes the lighter nature of Tom Sawyer.

Audrey, in a very interesting post says: ...The voice of the older, wiser Huck who narrates the story...

I wonder. We are told on the title page that the book is "Forty or fifty years ago." And this is significant for reasons we will see later. However, I don't see evidence that the narrator is an adult reflecting back over the years. Most of the introspection seems to me to be that of a fourteen year old and in reaction to whatever has just happened. Indeed there will be many times when we as readers are "in" on the meaning of something that Huck doesn't get.

To my reading there is actually only occasion when Huck clearly takes a retrospective attitude--and it is all the more meaningful and moving because it is so unexpected (if only at the reader's subconscious level.)

This post is not meant to sound disagreeable to Audrey or anyone else. But I think that because we are so familiar with the basic outline of the story after all these years, it's easy to over-determine the character prematurely. I think Mark Twain wants us to discover and grow (or not) along with Huck as the journey unfolds.

In fact, we know that he started out thinking he was writing a sequel. When he got about as far as we have in the reading, he stopped writing for several years, "pigeonholing" the project and considered not returning to it. He also was a writer who composed improvisationally; he does not begin with an ending in mind or an agenda--other than telling "the truth mainly."

When he took up the book again, in the early 1880's, following a visit back to Hannibal to research Life on the Mississippi he found a very changed, and troubling situation there with the collapse of Reconstruction. And, in my opinion, that is why the book will become more than a boys' tale.

Alias Reader wrote: "Zeke wrote: Notice, that in HF, Huck stages his own death and then escapes to Jackson's Island. ."
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The text I am reading has some footnotes. They mentioned to notice how many times i..."
Alias, your footnotes suggested taking note of how many times Huck wishes he were dead, and you commented that that was odd, in a child. Yes, it is. I had such a child. From about the age of three or four, when things didn't go his way, he would drop face down to the ground and announce, 'I'm dead.' I can't remember how many years this went on for, but I certainly found it odd. When he wasn't being difficult, he was completely charming, funny and cuddly. Most of the time he appeared very happy. But when he was unhappy he was fiercely and determinedly unhappy. Later, in his teenage years he was on medication for depression for some months. He later told me that he remembered being very sad when he was little. It was always a struggle to get him to school and he had trouble concentrating, as his mind was elsewhere. His fourth grade teacher predicted that he would become a dropout and a failure. I am happy to report that at twenty-nine he has his own successful IT business and is happy and enjoys swing dancing and loves music. When I read Huck Finn, I wonder how many kids there are who would rather be anywhere than in a classroom, or who would like to sneak out of the house at midnight (oh, I had one of those boys as well, he now has a partner and two daughters, and you can see them in my profile pictures.)

In message #31, Patrice spoke of inequality and property ownership. This reminded me of a documentary in which some men from a Pacific Island tribe were taken to England to see farming in another country. On their way through a city they spotted a homeless man and were very concerned for him in such a cold country. They asked the (to them) obvious question, why doesn't someone build him a house? Perhaps we are not quite as 'civilised' as we like to think.
Perhaps Mark Twain is trying to get us to think about how we should live, what is the value of education etc, by Huck asking himself about these things.

Alias Reader wrote: "Everyman wrote: and Huck was a dangerous person for children to read about
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This is my first time reading HF. Only a few months ago I read The Prince and the Pauper for ..."
One of the things that immediately struck me was HF's smoking.

(Sorry I'm late to the party; I just caught up with the reading!)
Yes, I can see where Huck's lifestyle and behavior might be cause for concern in a book that children might read (this thread was talking about pre-WWII, before the racial implications became the primary concern). But I'm not sure that smoking was quite the evil then (i.e., early 20th century) that it is now. Also, in one of the many scenes that made me laugh out loud while reading so far, Huck points out that the Widow, who berates Huck for smoking, then turns around and takes snuff, and thus Huck concludes that people only call behaviors evil if they don't practice them themselves. Maybe with that scene (and countless others in the novel, I'm sure) Mark Twain was predicting the controversy he figured this story would raise and answering it. But that "Emperor's New Clothes" feel of the narrative, where the uneducated child points out obvious flaws in adult reasoning, probably bothered a lot of adults.

Regarding snakes. I recently read a book where two innocents find themselves in a state of nature (note the descriptions in the chapter on Jackson's Island) and a snake enters the picture. Because of the snake things fall apart for them, yet the two also grow closer.

Can't recall the title though.

Zeke wrote: "Regarding snakes. I recently read a book where two innocents find themselves in an Edenic setting and a snake enters the picture. Because of the snake things fall apart for them, yet the two also g..."

I have to say a part of me was really currious to know if that part about a snake finding the body of its dead mate was true. I never heard of such a thing before and I did not think that snakes remained together after mating, I thought they pretty much were solitary animals.

Thomas cites the first paragraph as one of his favorites in literature. I'd say the same thing about the first sentence.

The first draft in the manuscript reads: “You will not know about me unless…”; the second, “You don’t know about me…”

From there to “You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter.”

Tells us a lot about the voice, and the character. That writing in the vernacular, like great comedy, requires a lot of hard work and genius. And also tells us that Twain was pretty cagey: the "but that ain't no matter" was added late in the process and both highlights the narrators casual tone as well as reassuring potential buyers who may not have read Tom Sawyer.

Silver wrote: Everyman wrote: "Silver wrote: "I do not think the pranks he plays can be taken as a sign of dislike towards Jim nor of a sign that he is at root a cruel person. "

I agree about the hat trick. But I think the d..."

To me the snake incident was not much different than the TV show Scare Tactics today, in which friends and family members set up their loved ones to terrify them out of their minds all in the name of fun.

And though it may have been mean-spirited in nature I think that for Huck he really only meant it as a prank, scaring people is fun and hard to resist the temptation when it arises. "
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This raises the age old question; what is humor?

Many laugh at a person falling on a banana peel.

One can also point to the 3 Stooges type of comedy. It could seem quite violent. Poking people in the eyes and all.

This type of humor appeals especially to kids. Maybe as we age, so does the level of subtlety in our humor.

Jan wrote: The text I am reading has some footnotes. They mentioned to notice how many times i..."
Alias, your footnotes suggested taking note of how many times Huck wishes he were dead, and you commented that that was odd, in a child. Yes, it is. I had such a child
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Jan, thanks for sharing. I'm glad the outcome was positive for your son.

Jan, thank you for sharing your son's story. (Sounds to me like that fourth grade teacher was already a failure and should have dropped out!)

I also think you may be on to something. Most of us carry some impression of what we expect from Huck just based on things we've seen and heard along the way. I wonder, however, if there might also be a reading in which he is a sad, confused boy in a chaotic and threateningly dangerous world that he is struggling to understand.

Over on the related writing thread Patrice and Zeke are talking about Twain's rejection of "old world" style in his writing. He didn't think much of social and class distinctions either. You can see his sense that separating humanity into isolated parts diminished the whole. He shows it in little zingers like Huck's description of the widow's cooking: "though there warn't really anything the matter with them,—that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself.  In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.

You can tell Twain is saying that the human stew is much more savory when you mix all the pieces up and let them season each other!

Alias Reader wrote: "Silver wrote: Everyman wrote: "Silver wrote: "I do not think the pranks he plays can be taken as a sign of dislike towards Jim nor of a sign that he is at root a cruel person. "

I agree about the ..."

I think that humur is certainly a very subjective thing as demonstrated within the discussion here in which I saw the incident with the snake as being perhaps not the nicest think to do, but I did not see it as being done with any true intent of malice but rather meant to be in good fun.

While Everyman clearly feels that the snake episode went a step beyond humur.

Different people do have widely different perceptions of what is humorous, as some people take personal offence to sarcasm, but it is one of my favorite modes of humur.

Though it is of course hard to truly define humur and what might cross the line to go beyond humur, as nearly all forms of humur generally involve laughing at another persons expense.

Yet if someone were to be severely injured either physically or emotionally in the name of someone else's amusement one could argue that in spite of others taking enjoyment from it, it still goes beyond humur and becomes something more malicious.

In the case of Huck, while a severe physical injury was the result and Jim was in fact put in a life-threatening position by what happened, it was not Huck's intent and he felt genuine remorse that his thoughtless act had led up to causing Jim actual physcial suffering.

Silver wrote: "I think that humur is certainly a very subjective thing as demonstrated within the discussion here in which I saw the incident with the snake as being perhaps not the nicest think to do, but I did not see it as being done with any true intent of malice but rather meant to be in good fun.
"

With regard to the subjective nature of humor -- one of the funnest scenes, for me, is the one with the hairball oracle.

Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it and listened. But it warn't no use; he said it wouldn't talk. He said sometimes it wouldn't talk without money. I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that warn't no good because the brass showed through the silver a little, and it wouldn't pass nohow, even if the brass didn't show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time. (I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hair-ball would take it, because maybe it wouldn't know the difference.

It's hard to see how Twain did not mean this to be funny, but Jim and Huck don't see it as funny, or strange even. It's just how things are. I read somewhere that this scene may have roots in old African religious ceremony, so to pass it off as simply humorous might be a little cavalier. On the other hand, Huck doesn't have so much respect for the prophetic power of the hairball that he is willing to give it his genuine dollar. Smart boy.

I once heard two quotes about humor that has always stayed with me. I wish I could recall the correct attributions for them, but I can't.

The first was that humor always involves someone suffering.

The second was that when you see a man stumble at the top of the stairs and roll down them, it is comic. When he turns towards you and you see the blood coming out of the side of his mouth it becomes something else.