Huck Finn notes

Chapters 1-3

Chapter 1

• Huck Finn as narrator: Huck’s straightforward, common sense reporting of ridiculous things is the basis of much of the book’s humor

• Huck mentions that Widow Douglas and Miss Watson want to “sivilize” him. The conflict between society and the individual becomes a main theme as the novel develops.

Chapter 1

• The satire about certain concepts of traditional religion (Moses; Huck not wanting to go to Heaven) serves to poke at the hypocrisy of a society that claims to be religious but treats fellow human beings as property. Twain also hates the idea of making a slave convert to Christianity, which is, to Twain, anti-Christian.

• Satire: the use of irony, sarcasm, or ridicule in exposing or ridiculing folly or vice. Dictionary.com

Chapters 2 & 3

• Tom functions as a contrast to Huck Finn– The extravagant plans which Tom introduces

contrast to Huck’s common sense approach. This contrast is seen in Huck’s escape from Pap.

– Huck is involved in real life while Tom is only interested when he is imitating something which he has read in a book.

Chapters 2 & 3

• The Mississippi River is described in its powerful and grand. Eventually, the river will become the main structural device of the novel (holding the plot together).

• Huck is literal-minded and accepts everything at face value and is not influenced by the values of society – doesn’t like things because he’s supposed to like them. Huck gives up on prayer because he doesn’t get the fish hooks he asks for.

Chapters 2 & 3

• Motif: a central idea or recurring theme

• Chapter 2 continues a superstition motif with Jim’s belief in witches and devils. Huck is concerned about killing a spider in chapter 1.

Huck Finn notes Chapters 4-6

Chapters 4 & 5

• The superstition motif continues in Chapter 4 and leads to Huck’s fears that Pap is coming back.

• Huck is shrewd, but doesn’t share society’s concern over money– Incident with the judge shows Huck’s ability to

think on the spot

Chapters 4 & 5

• In contrast to Miss Watson’s hypocrisy, Pap represents the brutality of civilization which threatens to destroy Huck

• Pap does not desire something better for Huck than he had himself, but is jealous of his son

• The appearance of Pap prepares us for Huck’s need to escape from a society which forces a son to obey such a totally corrupt and evil person as Pap.

Chapter 6

• One of Huck’s major attributes is his ability to adapt to any situation and to live in a variety of different surroundings

• Twain shows, through Pap’s drunken tirade, that the lower a man sinks, the more he seeks to pull others down below himself– Pap and the “white-shirted” negro

Huck Finn Notes

Chapters 7-12

Chapter 7

• Huck’s plan of escape is sensible and based on shrewd judgment, contrasting with Tom Sawyer’s ridiculous plans

• Twain is pointing out that common sense and natural actions are better than romantic pretensions.

Chapter 8

• Theme of death and rebirth– Huck symbolically dies (ripped away from

society) and is born again with a new set of values

– Huck is told of Jim running away and does not turn him in right away, though he doesn’t want to be a “low down Ablitionist”

– This acceptance of Jim foreshadows Huck’s later set of values when he defies society for the sake of his friendship with Jim

Chapters 8 and 9

• Superstition motif: – Supposedly educated people of the town

loading bread with quicksilver

Irony: The bread feeds Huck and keeps him alive. The cannon shooting nearly kills him.

Chapter 10

• This chapter presents the climax of the theme of superstition when Jim is bitten by the rattlesnake. This is the first time that Huck has done something which shows that he is not using common sense.

• Huck’s regret at pulling this trick on Jim indicates the beginning of a deeper relationship.

Chapter 10

• Jim doesn’t tell Huck about the dead man because he is trying to spare Huck the grief (the dead man is Pap). The comparision between Jim’s concern and Pap’s brutality in relation to Huck shows Jim’s superior sense of humanity.

Chapters 10 and 11

• Huck’s trip ashore is one of many trips meant to contrast life on the raft against the life of society on the shore

• The incident in which Huck dresses like a girl is the beginning of many types of identities he will assume throughout the journey. Also introduced is Huck’s ability to invent stories, though he is nearly caught.

• Huck relies on his native ability, whereas Tom has to have a fantastic plan based on books.

Chapter 11

• By the end of the chapter, Huck has so completely identified with Jim and Jim’s plight that he accepts Jim’s struggle as his own. This, then, leads to his later acceptance of Jim as superior to the values of society which would enslave him

“They’re after us!”

Chapter 12

• This chapter begins the second major part of the novel: the adventures that take place as they float down the Mississippi.

• The journey takes on a mythical quality.

• “It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars…”

Chapter 12

• The first significant adventure involves the wreck of the Walter Scott.

• The name of the wreck is one of Twain’s uses of satire, since he apparently thought Walter Scott’s romantic novels were a wreck.

• Huck’s sympathy for other human beings comes to light in his desire to save Jim Turner.

• His sympathy with even the worst or lowest of society allows Huck to respond to all classes of people and prepares the reader for his total acceptance of Jim.

Chapters 35 & 36

• Through Tom’s plans, we see again that the respectable element of society is often oblivious to the suffering of a human being. For example, Tom forces Huck to pay a dime for the watermelon, but ignores Jim’s suffering.

Chapter 37 & 38

The only alleviating factor in the cruelty to Jim is the fact that Jim allows these things to be done and even participates sometimes, though the tricks are often cruel.

• According to Twain, it is ironic that the Phelps’s are praying with Jim and teaching him Christianity, but are willing to sell him or give him up to a previous owner.