The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn LitChart

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

AUTHOR BIOFull Name: Samuel Clemens

Pen Name: Mark Twain

Date of Birth: November 30, 1835

Place of Birth: Florida, Missouri

Date of Death: April 21, 1910

Brief Life Story: Mark Twain grew up in Missouri, which was a slave stateduring his childhood. He would later incorporate his formative experiences ofthe institution of slavery into his writings. As a teenager, Twain worked as aprinters apprentice and later as a typesetter, during which time he alsobecame a contributor of articles and humorous sketches to his brother Orionsnewspaper. On a voyage to New Orleans, Twain decided to become asteamboat pilot. Unsurprisingly, the Mississippi River is an important setting inmuch of Twains work. Twain also spent much of his life travelling across theUnited States, and he wrote many books about his own adventures, but he isbest known for his novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel,Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), having written in the latter what isconsidered to be the Great American Novel. Twain died of a heart attack in1910.

KEY FACTSFull Title: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Genre: Childrens novel / satirical novel

Setting: On and around the Mississippi River in the American South

Climax: Jim is sold back into bondage by the duke and king

Protagonist: Huck Finn

Antagonist: Pap, the duke and king, society in general

Point of View: First person limited, from Huck Finns perspective

HISTORICAL AND LITERARY CONTEXTWhen Written: 18761884

Where Written: Hartford, Connecticut, and Quarry Farm, located in Elmira,New York

When Published: 1884 in England; 1885 in the United States of America

Literary Period: Social realism (Reconstruction Era in United States)

Related Literary Works: The great precursor to Adventures of Huckleberry Finnis Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote. Both books are picaresque novels. Thatis, both are episodic in form, and both satirically enact social critiques. Also,both books are rooted in the tradition of realism; just as Don Quixote apes theheroes of chivalric romances, so does Tom Sawyer ape the heroes of theromances he reads, though the books of which these characters are partaltogether subvert the romance tradition. It could also be said that with itsrealism and local color, Huckleberry Finn is a challenge to romantic epics likeHerman Melvilles Moby-Dick, which Huck might dismiss as impractical.Compare also Harriet Beecher Sotwes Uncle Toms Cabin, a novel that alsotreats the injustices and cruelty of American slavery but which, unlikeHuckleberry Finn, might be considered less a literary and more a propagandisticachievement.

Related Historical Events: Twain began writing the novel in theReconstruction Era, after the Civil War had ended in 1865 and slavery wasabolished in the United States. But even though slavery was abolished, thewhite majority nonetheless systematically oppressed the black minority, aswith the Jim Crow Laws of 1876, which institutionalized racial segregation.

Mark Twain, a stalwart abolitionist and advocate for emancipation, seems tobe critiquing the racial segregation and oppression of his day by exploring thetheme of slavery in Huckleberry Finn. Also significant to the novel is the SecondGreat Awakening, a religious revival that occurred in the Unties States fromthe late eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century. Twain was criticalof religious revivalism on the grounds that Christians didnt necessarily actmorally and were so zealous as to be easily fooled, a critique articulated inHuckleberry Finn.

EXTRA CREDITDialect. Mark Twain composed Huckleberry using not a high literary style butlocal dialects that he took great pains to reproduce with his idiosyncraticspelling and grammar.

Reception. A very important 20th-century novelist, Ernest Hemingway,considered Huckleberry Finn to be the best and most influential Americannovel ever written.

Huckleberry Finn introduces himself as a character from the book prequel tohis own, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He explains that at the end of that book,he and his friend Tom Sawyer discovered a robbers cache of gold andconsequently became rich, but that now Huck lives with a good butmechanical woman, the Widow Douglas, and her holier-than-thou sister, MissWatson.

Huck resents the sivilized lifestyle that the widow imposes on him. However,Huck stays with the Widow and Miss Watson because Tom tells him that, ifHuck doesnt stick with his life in straight-laced civilization, he cant join Tomsgang. So Huck does as the Widow tells him and gets to play robbers with Tomand other boys once in a while.

Even as Huck grows to enjoy his lifestyle with the Widow, his debauchedfather Pap menacingly reappears one night in his room. Pap rebukes Huck fortrying to better his life and demands that Huck give him the fortune he madeafter discovering the robbers gold. Huck goes about business as usual as theWidow and a local judge, Judge Thatcher, try to get custody of him so that hedoesnt fall into his fathers incapable and cruel hands. However, the two fail intheir custody battle, and an infuriated Pap decides to kidnap his son and draghim across the Mississippi River to an isolated cabin.

Huck is locked up like a prisoner in the cabin, and he is at the mercy of Papsdrunken, murderous rages, suffering many beatings from the old man. Huckresolves to escape from Pap once and for all. After some preparation, he fakeshis own death. Afterwards, Huck canoes to a place called Jacksons Island,where he finds a man he knows from home, a slave named Jim who has runaway from his owner, Miss Watson, because he had overheard that sheplanned to sell him.

Having found a raft during a storm, Huck and Jim happily inhabit JacksonsIsland, fishing, lazing, and even investigating a house floating down the riverthat contained a dead body. However, during trip into town while disguised asa girl to gather information, Huck learns that slave-hunters are out to captureJim for a reward. He and Jim quit the island on their raft, with the free statesas their destination.

A few days in, a fog descends on the river such that Huck and Jim miss theirroute to the free states. In the aftermath of this fog, Huck struggles with thecommand of his conscience to turn Jim in and the cry of his heart to aid Jim inhis bid for freedom. At last, Huck has his chance to turn Jim in, but he declinesto do so. The night after, a steamboat ploughs into Huck and Jims raft,separating the two.

Huck washes up in front of the house of an aristocratic family, theGrangerfords, which takes Huck into its hospitality. But the Grangerfords are

BABACKCKGRGROUND INFOOUND INFO

PLPLOOT OT OVERVIEWVERVIEW

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engaged in an absurdly pointless and devastating feud with a rival family, theShepherdsons. When a Grangerford girl elopes with a Shepherdson boy, thefeud escalates to mad bloodshed. Huck, having learned that Jim is in hidingnearby with the repaired raft, barely escapes from the carnage. He and Jimboard the raft and continue to drift downriver.

A few days pass before Huck and Jim find two con men on the run. Huck helpsthe men escape their pursuers and he and Jim host them on the raft, whereone of the con men claims to be a duke and the other a king. The duke and kingtake advantage of Huck and Jims hospitality, taking over their raft as theyhead downriver, all the while conducting scams on shore.

One day, the king learns that a man nearby, Peter Wilks, has died, and that hisbrothers are expected to arrive. Hoping to collect the mans inheritance, theduke and king go to his house claiming to be his dear brothers. Though theyingratiate themselves with most of the townspeople, especially Petersdaughters, the duke and king are suspected by some of being frauds. Huckcomes to feel so bad for Peters daughters, though, that he resolves to exposethe con men for what they are. As he puts his plan into effect, Peters realbrothers arrive, and, after the townspeople investigate, the duke and king areexposed. Huck escapes onto the raft with Jim, but despairs when the duke andking manage to do the same.

Desperate for money, the duke and king sell Jim to a local farmer, Silas Phelps,claiming that Jim is a runaway and that there is a reward on his head. The dukebetrays to Huck that Jim is being held at the Phelps farm. After some soul-searching, Huck decides that he would rather save Jim and go to hell than tolet his friend be returned to bondage.

Huck arrives at the Phelps farm where he meets Aunt Sally, whom Huck tricksinto thinking that Huck is a family member she was expecting, named Tom.Soon, though, Huck learns that Uncle Silas and Aunt Sally are none other thanTom Sawyers relatives. Indeed, Tom is the family member Aunt Sally wasexpecting all along. Huck intercepts Tom as he rides up to the Phelps farm, andTom not only agrees to help Huck keep his cover by impersonating his cousinSid, but he also agrees to help Huck in helping Jim escape from captivity.

Tom confabulates an impractical, romantic plan to free Jim, which Huck andJim reluctantly go along with. One night, Jim, Huck, and Tom make a successfulbreak for the Mississippi River, only to learn, however, that Tom was shot inthe leg by one of their pursuers. Jim sacrifices his freedom to wait with Tomwhile Huck fetches a doctor, who, after treating Tom with Jims help, insists onbringing Jim back to the Phelps farm, bound. He also presents Tom to thePhelpses wounded but alive.

After he recovers, Tom reveals to an anxious Aunt Sally and Huck that MissWatson wrote in her will that Jim was to be freed after her death and that shehad died two months earlier. Tom wanted to liberate Jim for the sake of self-indulgent adventure.

After things are straightened out, Jim reveals to Huck that Pap is dead; his wasthe corpse that Jim discovered in the floating house. Huck also learns that hestill has six thousand dollars in Judge Thatchers safekeeping and is free to dowhat he wants. Fearful of being adopted by Aunt Sally and sivilized again,Huck decides that he is going to go West.

Huckleberry FinnHuckleberry Finn The boy-narrator of the novel, Huck is the son of a vicioustown drunk who has been adopted into normal society by the WidowDouglass after the events of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In his love forfreedom, Huck rebels both against his father Paps debauchery and itsseeming opposite, a sternly straight-laced but hypocritical society. Wisebeyond his years, cleverly practical but nonetheless supremely humane, Huckdefies societal conventions by befriending the black slave Jim while travellingwith him on their raft and whom, as Huck matures, he comes to see as hisequal. Hucks maturation is impeded, though, by his respectable and bright butboyishly self-indulgent friend, Tom Sawyer.

JimJim One of Miss Watsons slaves, Jim runs away because he is afraid of beingseparated from his beloved wife and daughter. Jim is superstitious, butnonetheless intelligent; he is also freedom-loving, and nobly selfless. Hebecomes a kind of moral guide to Huck over the course of their travels

together, and, indeed, something of a spiritual father. Despite being the mostmorally upstanding character in the novel, Jim is ruthlessly persecuted andhunted and dehumanized. He bears his oppression with fiercely gracefulresistance.

TTom Saom Sawywyerer Tom is Hucks childhood friend, a boy from a respectable familywho is both bright and learned; he is also a seasoned prankster. As good-spirited as Tom is, he is not as morally mature as Huck, and his impracticalityendangers himself and others, especially Jim. Tom is also self-indulgent, evenselfish. Despite his shortcomings, however, Tom exerts a powerful influence onHuck.

The dukThe duke and kinge and king The kind of people Huck and Tom might turn into werethey to only act out of self-interest, the duke and king are a couple of con menthat Huck and Jim travel with. The two are selfish, greedy, deceptive, anddebauched, but sometimes their actions expose and exploit societal hypocrisyin a way that is somewhat attractive and also rather revealing. Though theexploits of the duke and king can be farcical and fun to watch, the twodemonstrate an absolute, hideous lack of respect for human life and dignity.

The Widow Douglas and Miss WThe Widow Douglas and Miss Watsonatson Two elderly sisters, the Widow andMiss Watson are Hucks guardians at the beginning of the novel until Paparrives on the scene. The two women demand that Huck conform to societalnorms, which Huck resents. Miss Watson is hypocritical in holding Christianvalues yet cruelly keeping slaves, even separating Jim from his family.However, it would seem that she sees the light just before her death: she freesJim in her will.

PPapap Hucks father, Pap is a vicious drunk and racist, demonstrably beyondreform, who wants to have Hucks fortune for himself. He resents Huckssocial mobility and, when not drunk or in jail, he can usually be found harassingHuck. Infuriated by the Widow at one point, Pap kidnaps Huck and imprisonshim in a cabin, where he beats Huck mercilessly, such that Huck is compelledto escape from him once and for all. Pap seems to be free from the Widow andMiss Watsons idea of society, but he is enslaved to his own wretchedviciousness and alcoholism, as much a prisoner as anyone in the novel.

Judge ThatcherJudge Thatcher A kind of guardian to Huck at the beginning of the novel.Judge Thatcher nobly helps the Widow in her bid for custody of Huck overPap, and, at the end of the novel, he dutifully restores to Huck his fortune.

Judith LJudith Loftusoftus A shrewd, gentle woman whom Huck approaches disguised asa girl. Mrs. Loftus exposes that Huck is lying to her, but is kind to himnonetheless. Her husband is a slave-hunter pursuing Jim.

Colonel SherburnColonel Sherburn A cold-blooded killer, Sherburn guns down the vocal butharmless drunkard Boggs for almost no reason at all, all of which Huckwitnesses in horror. When a lynch mob sets out to avenge Boggs death,Sherburn calmly scorns the mob as being full of cowards and absolutelyimpotent. He is right: the mob, humiliated, disperses.

The GrThe Grangerfords and Shepherdsonsangerfords and Shepherdsons Two noble, pious, aristocratic familiesthat absurdly, bloodily feud with one another despite mutual respect. Huckstays with the Grangerfords after becoming separated from Jim, but becomesembroiled in their feud after he accidentally enables a Grangerford girl toelope with a Shepherdson boy. Huck is confused by how such good, bravepeople could be involved in such devastating madness.

JackJack A Grangerford slave who tends to Huck and kindly shows him to whereJim is hiding nearby the Grangerford estate.

Mary Jane WilksMary Jane Wilks The beautiful daughter of Peter Wilks, Huck is so movedby her goodness that he resolves to expose the duke and king as the con menthey are.

Joanna WilksJoanna Wilks A daughter of Peter Wilks with a harelip, Joanna shrewdlycatches Huck in many lies as he plays along with the duke and kingsimpersonation of the Wilks brothers.

Doctor Robinson and LDoctor Robinson and Leevi Bellvi Bell The intelligent but somewhat condescendingfriends of Peter Wilks who suspect all along that the duke and king are frauds.

HarvHarveey and William Wilksy and William Wilks Brothers of Peter Wilks who have traveled fromEngland to the U.S. for Peters funeral. William is a deaf mute. The duke andking impersonate them during one of their more disgusting scams.

CHARACHARACTERSCTERS



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PPeter Wilkseter Wilks Brother of Harvey and William Wilks, father of Mary JaneWilks and her sisters; deceased.

Sally and Silas PhelpsSally and Silas Phelps Tom Sawyers aunt and uncle, respectively, who areboth good people and parents, upstanding members of their community, andyet who troublingly support the institution of slavery, exemplified by theirdetainment of Jim. Huck and Tom trick the Phelpses when preparing for Jimsescape, much to Aunt Sallys fury and Uncle Silass innocent befuddlement.Aunt Sally offers to adopt Huck at the end of the novel, but he refuses to besivilized by anyone.

NatNat A Phelps slave whose superstitions Tom exploits in executing hisridiculous plan to free Jim.

Aunt PAunt Pollyolly Tom Sawyers aunt and guardian, sister of Sally Phelps.

In LitCharts each theme gets its own color. Our color-coded theme boxesmake it easy to track where the themes occur throughout the work.

SLASLAVERY AND RAVERY AND RACISMCISMThough Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn after theabolition of slavery in the United States, the novel itself is set before the CivilWar, when slavery was still legal and the economic foundation of the AmericanSouth. Many characters in Twains novel are themselves white slaveholders,like Miss Watson, the Grangerford family, and the Phelps family, while othercharacters profit indirectly from slavery, as the duke and the king do in turningMiss Watsons runaway slave Jim into the Phelpses in exchange for a cashreward.

While slaveholders profit from slavery, the slaves themselves are oppressed,exploited, and physically and mentally abused. Jim is inhumanly ripped awayfrom his wife and children. However, white slaveholders rationalize theoppression, exploitation, and abuse of black slaves by ridiculously assuringthemselves of a racist stereotype, that black people are mentally inferior towhite people, more animal than human. Though Hucks father, Pap, is a vicious,violent man, it is the much better man, Jim, who is suspected of Hucks murder,only because Jim is black and because he ran away from slavery, in a bid forfreedom, to be with his family.

In this way, slaveholders and racist whites harm blacks, but they also do moralharm to themselves, by viciously misunderstanding what it is to be human, andall for the sake of profit. At the beginning of the novel, Huck himself buys intoracial stereotypes, and even reprimands himself for not turning Jim in forrunning away, given that he has a societal and legal obligation to do so.However, as Huck comes to know Jim and befriend him, he realizes that heand Jim alike are human beings who love and hurt, who can be wise or foolish.Jim proves himself to be a better man than most other people Huck meets inhis travels. By the end of the novel, Huck would rather defy his society and hisreligionhe'd rather go to Hellthan let his friend Jim be returned to slavery.

SOCIETY AND HYPOCRISYSOCIETY AND HYPOCRISYHuck lives in a society based on rules and traditions, many of which are bothridiculous and inhuman. At the beginning of the novel, Hucks guardian, theWidow Douglas, and her sister, Miss Watson, try to sivilize Huck by teachinghim manners and Christian values, but Huck recognizes that these lessonstake more stock in the dead than in living people, and they do little more thanmake him uncomfortable, bored, and, ironically enough, lonely. After Huckleaves the Widow Douglass care, however, he is exposed to even darker partsof society, parts in which people do ridiculous, illogical things, often withviolent consequences. Huck meets good families that bloodily, fatally feud forno reason. He witnesses a drunken man get shot down for making a pettyinsult.

Even at the beginning of the novel, a judge ridiculously grants custody of Huckto Hucks abusive drunkard of a father, Pap. The judge claims that Pap has alegal right to custody of Huck, yet, regardless of his right, Pap proves himselfto be a bad guardian, denying Huck an opportunity to educate himself, beatingHuck, and imprisoning in an isolated cabin. In such a case, fulfilling Paps legalright ridiculously compromises Hucks welfare. Furthermore, Hucks abuse

and imprisonment at the hands of Pap is implicitly compared to a morewidespread and deeply engrained societal problem, namely theinstitutionalized enslavement of black people. Huck comes to recognizeslavery as an oppressively inhuman institution, one that no truly sivilizedsociety can be founded on. People like Sally Phelps, who seem good yet areracist slaveholders, are maybe the biggest hypocrites Huck meets on histravels.

RELIGION AND SUPERSTITIONRELIGION AND SUPERSTITIONThere are two systems of belief represented in The Adventures of HuckleberryFinn: formal religion (namely, Christianity) and superstition. The educated andthe sivilized, like the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, practice Christianity,whereas the uneducated and poor, like Huck and Jim, have superstitions.Huck, despite (or maybe because of) the Widow Douglas and Miss Watsonstutelage, immediately has an aversion to Christianity on the grounds that ittakes too much stock in the dead and not enough in the living, that ChristianHeaven is populated by boringly rigid people like Miss Watson while Hellseems more exciting, and, finally, that Huck recognizes the uselessness ofChristianity. After all, prayers are never answered in Hucks world.

On the other hand, Huck and Jims superstitions, silly though they are, are nosillier than Christianity. Huck and Jim read bad signs into everything, aswhen a spider burns in a candle, or Huck touches a snakeskin. Jim even has amagic hairball, taken from an oxs stomach, that, when given money,supposedly tells the future. Huck and Jim find so many bad signs in the naturalworld that, whenever anything bad happens to them, theyre sure to have asign to blame it on. However, one of the subtle jokes of The Adventures ofHuckleberry Finn, a joke with nevertheless serious implications, is that, silly assuperstition is, it is a more accurate way to read the world than formal religionis.

It is silly for Huck and Jim to read bad signs into everything, but it is not at allsilly for them to expect bad things to be just around the corner; for they live ina world where nature is dangerous, even fatally malevolent, and where peoplebehave irrationally, erratically, and, oftentimes, violently. In contrast, formalreligion dunks its practitioners into ignorance and, worse, cruelty. By Christianvalues as established in the American South, Huck is condemned to Hell fordoing the right thing by saving Jim from slavery. Huck, knowing that theChristian good is not the good, saves Jim anyway, thereby establishing onceand for all a new moral framework in the novel, one that cannot be co-opted bysociety into serving immoral institutions like slavery.

GRGROWING UPOWING UPThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn belongs to the genre of Bildungsroman;that is, the novel presents a coming-of-age story in which the protagonist,Huck, matures as he broadens his horizons with new experiences. Huck beginsthe novel as an immature boy who enjoys goofing around with his boyhoodfriend, Tom Sawyer, and playing tricks on others. He has a good heart but aconscience deformed by the society in which he was raised, such that hereprimands himself again and again for not turning Jim in for running away, asthough turning Jim in and prolonging his separation from his family were theright thing to do.

As the novel develops, however, so do Hucks notions of right and wrong. Helearns that rigid codes of conduct, like Christianity, or like that whichmotivates the Grangerson and Shepherdsons blood feud, dont necessarilylead to good results. He also recognizes that absolute selfishness, like thatexhibited by Tom Sawyer to a small extent, and that exhibited by Toms muchworse prankster-counterparts, the duke and the king, is both juvenile andshameful. Huck learns that he must follow the moral intuitions of his heart,which requires that he be flexible in responding to moral dilemmas. And,indeed, it is by following his heart that Huck makes the right decision to helpJim escape from bondage.

This mature moral decision is contrasted with the immature way in which Tomgoes about acting on that decision at the Phelps farm. Instead of simplyhelping Jim, Tom devises a childishly elaborate scheme to free Jim, whichresults in Tom getting shot in the leg and Jim being recaptured. By the end ofThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck is morally mature and realistic,whereas Tom still has a lot of growing up to do.

THEMESTHEMES



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FREEDOMFREEDOMHuck and Jim both yearn for freedom. Huck wants to be free of petty mannersand societal values. He wants to be free of his abusive father, who goes so faras to literally imprison Huck in a cabin. Maybe more than anything, Huckwants to be free such that he can think independently and do what his hearttells him to do. Similarly, Jim wants to be free of bondage so that he can returnto his wife and children, which he knows to be his natural right.

The place where Huck and Jim go to seek freedom is the natural world.Though nature imposes new constraints and dangers on the two, includingwhat Huck calls lonesomeness, a feeling of being unprotected from themeaninglessness of death, nature also provides havens from society and evenits own dangers, like the cave where Huck and Jim take refuge from a storm. Insuch havens, Huck and Jim are free to be themselves, and they can alsoappreciate from a safe distance the beauty that is inherent in the terror offreedom.

That being said, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn implies that people can beso free as to be, ironically enough, imprisoned in themselves. The duke and theking, for example, foils (or contrasts) to Huck and Jim, are so free that they canbecome almost anybody through playacting and impersonation. However, thisis only because they have no moral compass and are imprisoned in their ownselfishness. Freedom is good, but only insofar as the free person binds himselfto the moral intuitions of his heart.

Symbols appear in red text throughout the Summary & Analysis sections ofthis LitChart.

THE MISSISSIPPI RIVERThe Mississippi River, on and around which so much of the action ofHuckleberry Finn takes place, is a muscular, sublime, and dangerous body ofwater and a symbol for absolute freedom. It is literally the place where Huckfeels most comfortable and at ease, and also the means by which Huck and Jimhope to access the free states. The river is physically fluid, flexible, andprogressive, just as Huck and Jim are in their imaginatively free acts ofempathy with other characters and in their pragmatic adaptability to anycircumstances that come their way. However, in being absolutely free, theriver is also unpredictable and dangerous, best exemplified during the stormsthat again and again threaten the lives of Huck and Jim. When he is alone, freefrom any immediately external influence, Huck begins to feel very lonesomeand as destructive as the river itself, or, rather, self-destructive. The river, then,embodies the blessing and dangers of freedom, which must be carefullynavigated if one is to live a good, happy life.

THE RAFTIf the river is a symbol for absolute freedom, then the raft, host primarily toHuck and Jim but also to the duke and king, is a symbol for a limitation onemust necessarily impose on ones freedom if one is not to be overwhelmed:peaceful coexistence. Unlike the sometimes ridiculous and hateful rules ofsociety, the rules of the raft are simple: respect differences and support oneanother. The raft is a kind of model society in which one can enjoy freedomunlike in society on shore, but at the same time not drown in ones freedom.Huck says that his happiest days are spent on the raft with Jim. It is significantthat the literal destruction of the raft immediately precedes Hucks fit ofconscience as to whether or not he should turn Jim in. Such a consideration, abetrayal, even, threatens to break Hucks friendship with Jim just as the raft isbroken. Significant also is the fact that it is after Huck learns about the insanedestructiveness of human conflict from the Grangerford-Shepherdson feudthat Jim pops back into Hucks life, the raft of their peaceful coexistencerepaired. This is all of course symbolic for the making, breaking, and repairingof trust and good faith in people despite their differences, and speaks to thefact that it is never too late to try to mend severed relations.

The color-coded boxes under each quote below make it easy to track thethemes related to each quote. Each color corresponds to one of the themesexplained in the Themes section of this LitChart.

CHAPTER 1 QUOTESYou dont know about me, without you have read a book by the name of TheAdventures of Tom Sawyer, but that aint no matter. That book was made byMr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which hestretched, but mainly he told the truth.

Huck Finn

The Widow Douglas, she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilizeme; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismalregular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldnt standit no longer, I lit out.

Huck Finn

CHAPTER 2 QUOTESBut how can we do it if we dont know what it is?Why blame it all, weve got to do it. Dont I tell you its in the books?Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer

CHAPTER 3 QUOTESI went and told the Widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get bypraying for it was spiritual gifts. This was too much for me, but she told mewhat she meansI must help others, and do everything I could for otherpeople, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myselfbut Icouldnt see no advantage about itexcept for the other peopleso at last Ireckoned I wouldnt worry about it any more, but just let it go.

Huck Finn

CHAPTER 4 QUOTESAt first I hated the school, but by-and-by I got so I could stand itI liked the oldways best, but I was getting so I liked the new ones too, a little bit.

Huck Finn

CHAPTER 5 QUOTESAnd looky hereyou drop that school, you hear? Ill learn people to bring up aboy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be bettern what he is.Pap

The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform the oleman [Pap] with a shot-gun maybe, but he didnt know no other way.

Huck Finn

SYMBOLSSYMBOLS

QUOQUOTESTES



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CHAPTER 6 QUOTESThe widow she found out where I was, by-and-by, and she sent a man over totry to get hold of me, but pap drove him off with the gun, and it warnt longafter that till I was used to being where I was, and liked it, all but the cowhidepart.

Huck Finn

But by-and-by pap got too handy with his hickry, and I couldnt stand it. I wasall over welts. He got to going away so much, too, and locking me in. Once helocked me in and was gone three days. It was dreadful lonesome.

Huck Finn

When they told me there was a State in this country where theyd let thatnigger vote, I drawed out. I says Ill never vote againI says to the people, whyaint this nigger put up at auction and sold?

Pap

CHAPTER 8 QUOTESThat is, theres something in [prayer] when a body like the widow or the parsonprays, but it dont work for me, and I reckon it dont work for only just the rightkind.

Huck Finn

I was ever so glad to see Jim. I warnt lonesome, now.

Huck Finn

People will call me a low down Abolitionist and despise me for keepingmumbut that dont make no difference. I aint agoing to tell, and I aint agoingback there anyways.

Huck Finn

Yesen Is rich now come to look at it. I owns myself, en Is wuth eight hundddollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn want no mo.

Jim

CHAPTER 12 QUOTESIm unfavorable to killin a man as long as you can git around it; it aint goodsense, it aint good morals.

Robber on the wreck

CHAPTER 13I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such a fix. Isays to myself, there aint no telling but I might come to be a murderer myself,yet, and then how would I like it?Huck Finn

CHAPTER 14Well, he [Jim] was right; he was most always right; he had an uncommon levelhead, for a nigger.

Huck Finn

I see it warnt no use wasting wordsyou cant learn a nigger to argue. So Iquit.

Huck Finn

CHAPTER 15My heart wuz mos broke bekase you wuz los, en I didnt kyer no mo whatbecome er me en de raf. En when I wake up en fine you back agin, all safe ensoun, de tears come en I could a got down on my knees en kiss yo foot Is sothankful. En all you wuz thinkin bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jimwid a lie.

Jim

It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myselfto a niggerbut I done it, and I warnt ever sorry for it afterwards, neither.

Huck Finn

CHAPTER 16Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom.Well, I can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him,because I begun to get it through my head that he was most freeand whowas to blame for it? Why, me.Huck Finn

So I reckoned I wouldnt bother no more about [right and wrong], but after thisalways do whichever comes handiest at the time.

Huck Finn

CHAPTER 18Did you want to kill [the Shepherdson], Buck?Well, I bet I did.What did he do to you?Him? He never done nothing to me.Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?Why nothingonly its on account of the feud.

Huck Finn, Buck Grangerford

CHAPTER 19For what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be satisfied,and feel right and kind towards others.

Huck Finn



CHAPTER 20I doan mine one er two kings, but dats enough. Dis ones powerful drunk, ende duke ain much better.

Jim

CHAPTER 22The pitifulest thing out is a mob; thats what an army isa mob; they dontfight with courage thats born in them, but with courage thats borrowed fromtheir mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head ofit, is beneath pitifulness.Colonel Sherburn

CHAPTER 23I do believe [Jim] cared just as much for his people as white folks does fortheirn. It dont seem natural, but I reckon its so.

Huck Finn

CHAPTER 27I thought them poor girls and them niggers would break their hearts for grief;they cried around each other, and took on so it most made me down sick to seeit. The girls said they hadnt ever dreamed of seeing the family separated orsold away from the town.

Huck Finn

CHAPTER 30Leggo the boy, you old idiot! Would you a done any different? Did you inquirearound for him, when you got loose? I dont remember it.The duke

CHAPTER 31All right, then, Ill go to helland [I] tore [my note to Miss Watson] up.Huck Finn

CHAPTER 33Im bound to say Tom Sawyer fell, considerable, in my estimation. Only Icouldnt believe it. Tom Sawyer a nigger stealer!Huck Finn

I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals [the duke and king], it seems like Icouldnt ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was adreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.Huck Finn

CHAPTER 42I never see a nigger that was a better nuss or faithfuller, and yet he wasresking his freedom to do itHe aint no bad nigger, gentlemen; thats what Ithink about him.

The doctor

CHAPTER 43But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because AuntSally shes going to adopt me and sivilize me and I cant stand it. I been therebefore.

Huck Finn

The color-coded boxes under "Analysis & Themes" below make it easy to trackthe themes throughout the work. Each color corresponds to one of thethemes explained in the Themes section of this LitChart.

CHAPTER 1Huck introduces himself as acharacter from Mark Twains earliernovel, The Adventures of TomSawyer. Huck says that, while thebook is mostly true, Twain told somestretchers, or lies, but that thatsokay, because most people tell lies onetime or another. Huck explains how, atthe end of the adventure recounted inthe earlier book, he and Tom Sawyerboth became rich, and that the WidowDouglas adopted him and tried tosivilize him. However, Huck becamebored with the Widows decency andregularity and ran away, but, at last,reluctantly returned when Tom toldHuck that, if he returned, he could bepart of Toms gang of robbers.

Though society, as represented by theWidow Douglas and Miss Watson, wouldcondemn all instances of lying, Huck is arealist, able to look beyond the rigid rulesof society in forming moral judgments.He recognizes that people lie and that, insome situations, lying is okay. Huckgrows bored of societal rigidity and runsaway, only to be convinced to return byTom Sawyer's imaginative games, whichpromise a kind of adventure (if not "real"adventure).

After Huck returned to the WidowDouglas, she wept, dressed Huck innew clothes that made himuncomfortable, and again imposed onhim a life of punctuality and manners.For example, the Widow Douglasrequires that Huck not begin eatinghis dinner immediately after it isserved, but that he wait until shegrumble, or pray, over it. Huck says,though, that the food is good, eventhough each dish is served by itself.He prefers it when dishes are servedtogether so that the juice swapsaround. The Widow also imposesChristian values on Huck. However,Huck complains that the Bible isirrelevant to him because all of itscharacters are dead, and he doesnttake any stock in dead people.

The rules of society are sometimesridiculous to Huck, like praying before ameal, especially when ones prayersounds less like thanks than a grumblingcomplaint. Huck is also intuitivelyagainst how society separates thingswith arbitrary boundaries, like food here,but, later, classes and races. Just as Hucklikes the juices of his food to mingle, sotoo is he inclined to cross societalboundaries in service of what his hearttells him is right. Such boundaries, likereligion, serve the dead. Huck caresabout the livingabout life.

SUMMARY & ANALSUMMARY & ANALYSISYSIS



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The Widow Douglas forbade Huckfrom smoking in the house as well.Huck points out that the Widowcondones useless things like studyingthe Bible, but forbids Huck from doinggood and useful things, like smoking.Furthermore, he points out that theWidow herself takes snuff, a tobaccoproduct, and says that this is alright,not on principle, but only because sheherself does it.

The Widow Douglas is good and kind,and yet, like many members of society,she can be a hypocrite. What motivatesher hypocrisy is self-interest: though shecondemns Huck for smoking, the Widowdoesnt condemn snuff because sheherself takes it.

Meanwhile, the Widow Douglasssister, Miss Watson, teaches Huckhow to spell, critiques his posture, andtells him about Heaven and Hell.Wanting a change in hiscircumstances, any change, Huck sayshe would rather be in Hell than inHeaven, much to Miss Watsonsconsternation. She responds that sheis living her life such that she can go toHeaven. Huck concludes that hedcertainly rather not go to whereverMiss Watson is going, but saysnothing of this so as not to furtherupset her. He asks Miss Watsonwhether Tom Sawyer is going toHeaven or Hell. When Miss Watsonsays hes going to Hell, Huck is glad,because that means he and his friendcan be together.

Huck is frustrated with society asrepresented by Miss Watsonslessonsby its strictness, its empty rulesabout how one must be and lookandhe knows that society needs to changesomehow. He wants to go to Hellbecause it sounds better than his currentcircumstances, less boring and moreaccepting. This choice foreshadowsHucks later choice to be damned insaving Jim.

After Hucks talk with Miss Watson,Huck goes up to his bedroom. He sits,tries to think cheerful thoughts, but isso lonesome that he wishes he weredead. He looks out his window atnature, sees the stars, and hearsmournful, ghostly sounds in the leavesand in the birdcalls. A spider crawls onHucks shoulder. Huck flicks thespider into a candle, where it burns.Huck, frightened, takes this as a signof bad luck. Soon afterward, he hearsa meowing outside. Huck meows backand goes outside, to find Tom Sawyerwaiting for him.

When Huck is alone, away from society,free, he sometimes becomes lonesome,specifically when he perceives signs ofdeath, like the sound of the dead leaves,as they are reflected in the natural world.Such a feeling is only exacerbated byHucks childish superstitions, like hisreading of the burning spider as a sign ofbad luck. This lonesomeness is relievedwhen Huck is with friends like Tom.

CHAPTER 2As Huck and Tom Sawyer sneak awayfrom the Widow Douglass house,Huck trips and makes a noise. One ofMiss Watsons slaves, Jim, hears thenoise and leans out of the kitchendoorway and asks whos there. Huckand Tom are silent, hiding in the dark,even though Huck needs to scratch anitch, which Huck says is even itchierbecause he knows he cant scratch itwithout making a noise. Jim comesoutside and searches for the source ofthe sound but, finding nothing,eventually sits down and falls asleep.

Jim is a good man: even though hedetests his enslavement, he investigatesthe noise to make sure that there isnothing dangerous outside threateningMiss Watson or her interests. Huckspredicament shows that making a bid forfreedom can be uncomfortable, but hewould rather be uncomfortable now andfree later than otherwise.

Despite Hucks protests, Tom takessome candles from the WidowDouglass kitchen, leaving five cents inpayment, and then tricks the sleepingJim by taking Jims hat off of his headand hanging it on a nearby treebranch. Afterwards, Jim tells hisfellow slaves that a witch possessedhim and rode him everywhere thatnight, hanging his hat on the branch toshow that she had rode him so. Jimsfellow slaves would come from far andwide to listen to Jims story.

Tom takes risks, like stealing the candles,that Huck objects to. Huck is morepractical, perhaps because Tom comesfrom a more privileged background thanHuck. Like Huck, Jim explains unknownphenomena, like how his hat got into thetree, with superstitious explanations. Itseems silly for the other slaves to believeHuck's stories, but later in the novelmany religious whites will believe storiesjust as ridiculous.

Tom and Huck meet up with someother boys, and, after a shortexcursion, end up in a cave, whereTom announces that the boys presentcan be members of his band ofrobbers, which he calls Tom SawyersGang. All the boys want to bemembers, and, after swearing an oaththat Tom fashioned after what he readin robber and pirate books, areinducted into the Gang. However, theoath requires that, if a memberreveals a secret of the Gang, his familybe killed. Huck doesnt have a familyother than a drunkard father who noone can ever find, and so the boysdebate whether he should beinducted into the Gang at all. Huck atlast offers Miss Watson to be killed,which his fellows accept.

Here, the boys play at making their ownsociety. Like the society of the South, thatof the boys is rooted in silly traditions,those Tom derived from his robber andpirate books. But the boys alsodemonstrate that they are more flexiblethan members of the society of theSouth. They are willing to bend their ownrules so that Huck can be a member ofthe Gang.

The members of Tom Sawyers Gangdebate what their purpose will be.Tom declares that the Gangs purposeis to rob people on the roads ofwatches and money, and then toeither kill or ransom those whom theyrob. One boy questions whether theGang should ransom people, but Tominsists that it must, because that iswhat happens in the books that hereads. The only problem is that no oneknows what it means to ransomsomeone. Tom concludes that it is tokeep someone until they die, and theboys agree this must be the case. Theboys also agree not to kill women, butto keep them in the cave and treatthem very sweetly. The Gang decidesto pull off its first robbery, but cant doit on Sunday because that would bewicked. The Gang disperses, and Huckreturns home.

Toms Gang, like society, is rooted inarbitrary traditions that have lost theirmeaning. The boys dont know whatransoming is, but adopt it as a practiceonly because of tradition. While it is okayfor a make-believe gang to do so, it ischildish for adults in society to do so,especially considering that, while theviolence done by Toms gang is pretend,that perpetrated by society is very real,with bloody, sometimes deadlyconsequences. This passage also pointsout how ridiculous it is to obey the letterof Christianity but not the spirit: the boysare going to do something bad, robpeople, but insist that they cant do it onSunday, because Sunday is a holy day.But wicked things are no more wicked onone day than anotherthe boys aremixing up looking like good Christianswith actually being good Christians, justas it becomes clear many adults also do.



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CHAPTER 3After Huck returns home, MissWatson scolds him for having dirtiedhis clothes. The Widow Douglas doesnot scold Huck, but washes hisclothes, looking so sorry as she doesso that Huck resolves to behavehimself. Miss Watson takes Huck intoa closet to pray, telling him that he willreceive whatever he asks for, butHuck concludes that this is not thecase, on the grounds that, when heprayed for a fish-line, he got one, butit didnt have any hooks and wastherefore useless.

Though they seem to hold the sameChristian values, Miss Watson is strictwithout compassion, whereas the Widowis compassionate. As Christianity is areligion rooted in compassion, it could besaid that Miss Watson and the Widowreally do hold different values. Indeed,Miss Watson tells Huck that one getswhatever one prays for, but this is not aChristian conception of prayer at all. Itsa superstition.

Huck recounts how he sat down, onetime, in the back of the woods andthought about prayer. He wonders, ifsomeone gets whatever he or sheprays for, why, for example, theWidow Douglas cant get her silversnuff-box back that was stolen. Huckconcludes that, insofar as prayer isconcerned, there aint nothing in it.He tells the Widow this, and she saysone can only get spiritual gifts bypraying, that is, gifts that aid one inbeing selfless. Huck thinks thatselflessness is not advantageous, anddecides to just let it go. He goes on tosay, though, that there must be twoProvidences, that of the Widow andthat of Miss Watson, and that hewould belong to the former, eventhough it might not help himconsidering that he is so ignorantandlow-down and ornery.

Huck realizes that Miss Watsonsconception of prayer as getting whateveryou ask for doesnt account for the actualeffects of prayer. The Widow Douglasclarifies that one doesnt get whateverone prays for in Christian thought, butrather that one receives not material butspiritual gifts through prayer. Thepractical Huck doesnt value such giftsvery highly, but he does conclude that, ifgiven the choice between Miss Watsonsseemingly Christian values and theWidows real Christian values, hed takethe latter.

Huck thinks about his father Pap, whohadnt been seen for more than a year,which is just fine with Huck. Pap is anabusive drunkard. People thoughtthat he had drowned, because a bodyresembling his had been dredgedfrom the river, but Huck doesnt thinkit was Paps body after all, because thebody was discovered floating on itsback, and men, Huck thinks, float ontheir faces, so that body must havebeen a womans.

This foreshadows Paps reappearancelater in the novel, as well as the episodein which Huck disguises himself as a girl,only to be found out for what he is. ThatHuck knows how women and men floatspeaks to his familiarity with thedestructiveness of nature and horrors ofdeath, shocking given his young age.

Huck turns to thinking about TomSawyers Gang. They played robberfor about a month, before all the boys,including Huck, resigned from thegang because they hadnt robbedanyone but only pretended to. Theywould hide in the woods and chargeon passers-by, like hog-drovers andwomen in carts taking produce tomarket. Tom referred to the hogs asingots and produce as julery, butHuck sees no profit in pretending.

More than anything, Tom loves topretend, and he is very childlike in thisway. Play is its own reward for him. Incontrast, Huck is interested in materialprofit, which is an interest shared by theadults in the novel. Unlike Tom, Huckschildhood, it would seem, has endedprematurely, maybe because of thedifficulties of his life, the poverty that heagain and again contends with.

One time, Huck goes on to recount,Tom summoned the Gang and toldthem about a large group of Spanishmerchants and A-rabs who weregoing to camp in a nearby cave withtheir elephants, camels, mules,diamonds, and other exotic riches.After polishing their swords and guns,which were really just lath andbroom-sticks, the Gang set out to raidthe Spanish and Arab camp, only tofind a Sunday school picnic in its place.The Gang chased the children at thepicnic and seized their goods. WhenHuck points out to Tom that therewere no Spaniards and Arabs, Tomtells Huck he is wrong, that it onlyseemed that way because magicianstransformed the Spaniards and Arabsand their possessions into an infantSunday school.

Tom has a wildly active imagination,fueled by the books he has read. He canturn even something mundane like aSunday school picnic into the object ofadventure. When Huck, always therealist, challenges Toms imaginings asfake, Tom can defend their reality withyet new imaginings, as he defends hisimaginings of the Arabs and Spaniardswith imaginings of magicians. In this way,Tom shows that, with the power ofimagination, one can defy the logic of thereal world (for better and, we will see, forworse).

After calling Huck a numskull forthinking that the Sunday school picnicwas just that, Tom explains to Huckthat a magician could call up genies toaid them in their enchantments. Huckasks Tom if the Gang can summongenies to help them, but Tom saysthat, to summon a genie, one musthave a lamp or ring to rub, and thatthe genies are powerful enough tobuild even palaces. Huck says that thegenies are a pack of flatheads forserving someone when they couldkeep the palaces for themselves. Tomretorts that Huck is a perfect sap-head. Later, to see if there is anythingto what Tom says, Huck got a lamp andring and rubbed them, but no geniecame. Huck concludes that Tom liedabout the Arabs and elephants, for thegroup the Gang robbed had all themarks of a Sunday school.

Given that they are so powerful, Huckthinks, genies are foolish for servingothers slavishly when they could servethemselves. This reveals one of Huckscommitments to freedom: if one is ableto liberate oneself, one should do so.Though Huck doesnt cross-apply thiscommitment to black slaves in bondagenow, he later will. Note, also, that Hucktests Toms claim about how genies aresummoned. Huck is open but skepticalabout others ideas and is keen to testwhat others tell him on his own terms, atrait which enables him to penetratesocietal hypocrisy.

CHAPTER 4Three or four months pass since theGangs raid on the Sunday school.Huck has been going to school andlearning reading, writing, andarithmetic, though he dont take nostock in mathematics. He hatedschool at first, but gets used to it. He isalso getting used to the regularity ofthe Widows household, and evencoming to like it.

It is telling that Huck finds reading andwriting valuable, both social subjectsconcerned with communication in thereal world, but not arithmetic, a rigidlyabstract subject. That said, Huck isadaptable enough that he soon comes tolike what he hated at first.



One morning, Huck overturns asaltcellar at breakfast. To ward off badluck, he reaches for the spilt contentsto throw some salt over his leftshoulder, but Miss Watson preventshim from doing so, telling him that heis a mess-maker. As Huck uneasilyheads out of the house, he keeps alookout for bad things coming his way.As he walks, he sees in the snowsomebodys tracks, the left boot-heelof which, because studded with nails,leaves crosses in the ground to wardoff the devil.

Miss Watson is always telling Huckabout her Christian superstitions, butshe sees his superstitions as ridiculous.That said, Huck does indeed encountersomething bad: the telltale marks of hisfathers tracks in the snow (though thenovel builds suspense by not revealingjust what the bad thing is yet). Huckslogical misstep is in thinking that spillingthe salt caused his father to reappear.

Huck nervously makes his way toJudge Thatchers house. The judgetells Huck that the six thousanddollars he has left in the bank hascollected interest, and warns himagainst taking any money out of thebank. Huck replies he wants JudgeThatcher to have all of his money. TheJudge, not quite understandingHucks intentions, buys Hucksproperty for a dollar.

In response to seeing Paps tracks, Huckdoes something both reasonable andpractical: he gives his money to JudgeThatcher so that the greedy Pap canttake it from him, which would otherwisebe allowed by the backwards custodylaws of society.

Huck goes on to tell how Jim has ahairball, taken from the belly of an ox,that Jim does magic with. Huck goesto Jim, tells him that he saw Papstracks in the snow (those that leavethe cross), and asks what Pap is goingto do and how long he is going to bearound. Jim says something over thehairball and drops it on the ground,but the hairball doesnt talk. Jimexplains that the hairball sometimesneeds money to talk. Huck gives thehairball a badly counterfeited quarterwith brass showing through the silver,saying nothing of the dollar he gotfrom Judge Thatcher. After Jim putsthe quarter in a split raw potato tocover the brass, he and Huck put itunder the hairball, Jim tells Huck thatthe hairball prophesies that Papdoesnt know what he is going to do,and that Huck is going to havetroubles and joys in his life. WhenHuck goes up to his room, he finds Papsitting there.

It might seem that Jim is trying to conHuck out of money by telling him thatsometimes his hairball requires paymentbefore it speaks, but it must beremembered that Jim himself issuperstitious, and that he gladly acceptsHucks counterfeited quarter, as thoughto con not Huck but the hairball itself.Huck is, again, practical here, as an adultwould be, in saying nothing about hisactual dollar, thereby protecting it.Finally, note that, while Jim and Huck aresuperstitious about the hairball, they donot attribute a supernatural explanationto the re-silvering of the counterfeitedquarter. What is considered magical inHucks world is arbitrary.

CHAPTER 5Huck is scared at first to see the old,greasy, pale Pap sitting in his roombecause Pap tanned, or beat, him sooften, but soon is not scared at all. Papreprimands Huck for wearing niceclothes, and says that because Huckhas learned to read and write he mustthink hes better than his own father.Pap vows to take Hucks frills out ofhim. Pap warns that Huck better stopgoing to school, because none ofHucks family was educated, and,therefore, neither should Huck.

Far from offering Huck any kind offreedom from his strictly sivilizedlifestyle, Pap imposes yet another kind ofimprisonment, one based on class, whereHuck is prevented from bettering andeducating himself. This is counter-intuitive: Pap should want the best forhis son, but he instead wants no betterfor Huck than what he himself had.

Pap tells Huck that he hears thatHuck is rich now, but Huck says thathe doesnt have any money. Pap callsHuck a liar and says that he wantsHucks money. Huck shells out his onedollar and Pap takes it to buy whiskeywith.

Huck would rather enable Paps drinkingby giving him money than be beat for notdoing so, reflecting a pragmaticcommitment to being responsible foroneself.

The next day, Pap is drunk and tries tocoerce Judge Thatcher into givinghim Hucks fortune, but the Judgerefuses. Afterward, Judge Thatcherand the Widow go to a court of law totake Huck from Paps custody, but thenew judge whom they appeal to, so-called because he is new to the court,says he wouldnt take a son from hisfather. Judge Thatcher and theWidow are forced to quit thebusiness, and Pap is granted custodyof Huck.

The new judge whom the Widow andJudge Thatcher approach delivers ahypocritical ruling: he gives Pap custodyof Huck because he thinks that thetradition of parent raising child honorsthe welfare of the child, yet Huckswelfare is actively endangered by Pap.The judge ignores the actual facts infavor of a principle that doesnt hold inevery situation.

Pap is pleased with the courtscustody ruling. He threatens to beatHuck black and blue unless Huckraises money for him. Huck borrowsthree dollars from Judge Thatcher,which Pap uses to get drunk, goingaround town cussing and whoopingand carrying on. Pap is jailed formaking such a ruckus.

As Miss Watson is stuck in her valuesand ways, so is Pap stuck in his cruelty,selfishness, drunkenness, anddebauchery. Even having his freedomtaken away doesnt deter him fromacting badly.

After Pap is released, the new judgeresolves to reform him. He invites Papto supper, where he lectures Pap ontemperance and other virtues till Papbegins to cry and swears that, thoughhe has been a fool, he is going to turnhis life around. The judge believes Pap,and has his whole family shake Papshand, once the hand of a hog, but nomore. All cry. The judge provides Papwith a room, but soon after Pap beginsto desire alcohol. He climbs out of hisroom, trades his new coat for whiskey,and climbs back into the room. Thenext morning, he crawls out of theroom again, drunk, breaks his arm, andalmost freezes to death where he falls.The judge is upset, and says that Papcould be reformed with a shot-gun,maybe, but by no other means.

The new judge, maybe regretting that hehas given the debauched Pap custody ofHuck, tries to give Pap an opportunity tobreak out of his irresponsible ways, andPap seems to attempt to do so. But hishabits are too deeply ingrained to becorrected: as soon as he is given back hisfreedom, Pap indulges in his literally self-destructive behaviors again. Healtogether lacks Hucks adaptability. Papmay not be regular like the Widow andMs. Watson, but he is no more free thanthey are, imprisoned in his bad ways ashe is. Only in death, the judge thinks, cansuch a man be free.

CHAPTER 6Pap continues to harass JudgeThatcher for Hucks money, and heharasses Huck for not stoppingschool. Huck goes to schoolnevertheless, with even more desire ifonly to spite Pap. The law trial Papinstigates proceeds slowly, so Huckborrows two or three dollars fromJudge Thatcher once in a while to giveto Pap, so that Huck might avoid abeating. With Hucks money, Pap getsdrunk, and every time he gets drunkhe gets rowdy and is jailed. Huckthinks this was right in his line.

Even though Huck is adaptable to hissurroundings, he is more rebellious thananything: its exactly because Pap tellshim not to go to school that Huck insistson going to school. Huck pushes backagainst any rigid structure that isimposed on him. Pap, on the other hand,leads a repetitious life, getting drunk,getting, jailed, getting drunk, etc.



When Pap loiters around the Widowsestate too much, the Widowreprimands him. Pap vows to showher who Hucks boss is, so one day hekidnaps Huck and takes him to anisolated log hut in the woods near theriver. Pap is with Huck at all times, sothat Huck has no chance for escape.The two live on what fish they catchand what game they shoot with Paps(probably stolen) gun. Sometimes Paplocks Huck up to go down to the storeto trade fish and game for whiskey.Huck eventually becomes accustomedto his new living situation, despite thebeatings.

The cabin that Pap takes Huck to is asymbol for imprisonment, a place whereHucks freedom is physically limited.Hucks imprisonment there is analogousto Jims bondage: both are socio-economically motivated (Pap wantsHucks money as a slaveholder wants toprofit from holding his slave), and bothinvolve oppression and violence.Characteristically, Huck adapts to life inthe cabin, because he has no otherreasonable option.

Huck comes to like the lazy and jollylife he leads with Pap, the smoking andfishing he does without the burden ofstudy. His nice clothes become dirtyand tattered. Huck even wonders howhe ever adapted to the lifestyleendorsed by the Widow, what with itsmanners and rules. Though Huck hadstopped cussing over the course of hissivilizing, he resumes because Papdoesnt object.

Huck lives in the present, unbound by thepast: he lives whatever life he thinks iscurrently best, and has no nostalgia forhis previous ways of life. Oneconsequence of this, though, is that Huckis something of a slow learner: itsbecause he doesnt change readily inresponse to past experiences that Huck isso slow to accept Jim not as a black slaveinferior to whites but as an equal humanbeing deserving of freedom.

However, Pap eventually begins tobeat Huck so often and so severelythat Huck, covered with welts, can nolonger stand the abuse. Pap alsobegins to leave Huck alone too often,locking him in the cabin, such thatHuck is often dreadful lonesome.Scared one time that Pap hasdrowned and that he might never befreed from the cabin, Huck begins tolook for ways to escape. There is noway out of the cabin, though, so Hucklooks for tools to make an escape. Hefinds a rusty old saw which hecarefully begins to use an old saw hefinds to remove a section from a log ofthe cabin, big enough for him tosqueeze through. Soon after hebegins, Huck hears Paps gun go off inthe woods outside. Huck hides allevidence of his work, just before Papreturns home.

It is only when a way of life becomesuntenable for Huck that he seeks tochange it. Here, for example, it is onlyafter living with Pap becomes unsafethat Huck seeks means of escaping fromPap, which he could have done anytimein the past but neglected to do. Huckformulates a very practical plan for hisescape, resourceful and efficient. Thisplan is contrasted later with Toms planto liberate Jim from the Phelps Farm,which is maybe more stylish than Hucks,but much more romantic, less practical,and more dangerous.

Pap is characteristically in a bad moodwhen he comes in. He rants that hislawsuit to get Hucks money isproceeding too slowly, and that itlooks as though the Widow and JudgeThatcher may be successful inanother bid to win custody of Huck.This shakes Huck up considerable,because Huck doesnt want to returnto being sivilized at this point. Papthen begins to cuss violently, sayingthat hed like to see the Widow try toget custody of Huck, threatening totake Huck to an even more isolatedlocation. Huck is worried, butconsoles himself that Pap wont getthe chance to take him away, becauseHuck will have escaped by then. Paptells Huck to load their skiff (a kind ofboat) with supplies required for ajourney, prompting Huck to furtherplan his escape.

That Huck wants to live neither with theWidow, where he is not free enough, norwith Pap, where he is too free, revealsthat freedom for Huck can be eitherdeficient or excessive, and that the idealdegree of freedom is somewhere betweenthose two extremes, between living onlyby rigid rules or flouting such rulesaltogether. However, at this point, Huckhas not yet learned which rules he shouldlive by, and it is education in this regardthat constitutes a major part of hismaturation.

After Huck loads the skiff, he and Papsit down to dinner, during which Papbecomes drunk. He begins to rantagainst the government for takingHuck from his flesh-and-blood father,just as Huck is becoming useful to him,and also for supporting JudgeThatcher in keeping Hucks money.Pap then goes on to denounce thegovernment for allowing a man ofmixed race to become a wealthy,educated college professor with theright to vote, because Pap doesntthink a person of mixed race shouldhave opportunities and rights as goodas those of white people. Indeed, hethinks the professor should be put upat a slave auction and sold.

Pap thinks of himself as a victim of badgovernment policies, but in doing so heneglects to take into account the peoplewho have tried to help him salvage hislife, like the new judge, nor does heaccept responsibility for his baddecisions. Pap is also resentful of allpeople more successful than he is; avicious racist, he doesnt believe a blackman should be more materiallysuccessful than him, and is resentful ofsuccessful black people in general.

As he rants, Pap wanders around thecabin, eventually tripping on a tub ofsalt pork, which makes him cuss evenmore. He hops around the cabin, kicksthe tub with his boot that has acouple of his toes leaking out of thefront end, howls even more, and endsup rolling around in the dirt. Aftersupper, Pap gets his jug of whiskey,and Huck predicts that he will be verydrunk by the end of the night, at whichpoint Huck could make his escape. ButPap stays up late thrashing andmoaning, and Huck himself,exhausted, falls asleep. He wakes toPap screaming that snakes arecrawling up his legs. Pap hops aroundthe cabin some more till he falls down,and, after rolling violently on the floor,lies still, saying soon thereafter thatthe dead are after him. Pap rises andcrawls, begging the dead to leave himalone, and starts to cry.

Paps self-destructiveness is exemplifiedin this scene: he hurts himself, but, ratherthan tend to his injury, he, ratherhypocritically, only exacerbates it bylashing out and, in lashing out, hurtinghimself even more This resembles how herefuses the new judges help in beingreformed and, falling back intodrunkenness, literally hurts himself afterfalling out of his window. As for Papshallucinations, the first may draw onPaps religious beliefs. In the Bible, thesnake is a figure for the Devil and sin,which Pap is haunted by. Papshallucination of the dead touching himforeshadows his own death by drowningchapters later.



After some time passes, Pap jumps uplooking wild, and he goes after Huckwith a knife, calling him the Angel ofDeath. Huck tells Pap that hes not theAngel of Death, but Pap only laughsand continues to chase Huck. At onepoint, Pap grabs Huck by the back ofhis jacket. Huck thinks that Pap is justabout to kill him, and so he slides outof his jacket and succeeds in savinghimself. Pap soon drops down with hisback against the door to rest, guardingthe knife under him, and falls asleep.Huck grabs Paps gun, loads it, andpoints it at the sleeping Pap, waiting,as time slowly drags on, for him towake up.

Pap is clearly not in his right mind at thispoint, drunk and despairing as he is, somuch so that he thinks Huck is the Angelof Death. An irony here is that, thoughPaps hallucination pertains to aChristian image, Pap is acting mostunlike a Christian: he does not acceptdeath tranquilly, with the promise ofredemption and eternal life in Heaven inmind, and he is viciously violent towardHuck.

CHAPTER 7Pap wakes Huck, who fell asleep in thenight, and asks him what hes doingwith the gun. Huck lies and says thatsomeone tried to break in and thatHuck was lying in wait for theintruder, which Pap accepts. He tellsHuck to go check the fishing line forbreakfast. Huck does so, scanning ashe does the rising river. Seeing apassing canoe, Huck jumps into it andpaddles it ashore, thinking Pap will bepleased. But then another idea strikesHuck: he decides to hide the canoeand use it in his escape.

Huck tells many lies in the novel, usually,as here, white lies that are practical andmotivated by Hucks desire to protectpeople, including, sometimes, himself. Hislie to Pap here no doubt protects Huckfrom an undeserved beating. Hucks skillin lying is part of his adaptability andlove of freedom. When rigidly adhering tothe truth would cause undo harm, Hucksacrifices the truth.

After Huck returns to shore, Papberates him for taking so long with thefish. Huck lies that he fell in the river.Huck and Pap get five catfish off thefishing lines and head hone. As thetwo Finns lay about and Pap says thatHuck should rouse him the next timean intruder comes prowling, Huck hasan idea to prevent Pap and the Widowfrom pursuing him after he makes hisescape.

As earlier, Huck again tells a white lie toPap to cover up his escape plans. Huck ismore committed to freedom than he iseven to truth. But Huck is not committedto freedom in an idealistic, impracticalway: he is willing to do whatever it takesto execute his escape plan efficiently,without a trace.

Pap and Huck collect nine logs fromthe river to sell and then eat dinner.Pap is content to do so, even thoughany other man would keep scanningthe river for things to sell from it.After dinner, Pap locks Huck up in thecabin again and boats to town to sellthe nine logs. After Pap has gotten aways, Huck retrieves his saw from itshiding place and finishes making hishole in the cabin, through which hethen escapes. Huck takes provisionsfrom the cabin, anything worth acent, and stores them in his hiddencanoe. He hides any trace of hisescape by covering his tracks andsealing the hole he made in the cabin.

Pap, like Huck, proves himself to bepractical, collecting only as many logs tosell as he needs before quitting. But,unlike Huck, Paps practicality servesself-destructive ends, like the purchase ofwhiskey, as opposed to a nobler end likefreedom. This is the end Huckspracticality serves as Huck takes what heneeds from Paps cabin and hides alltraces of his escape by covering histracks, literally and otherwise.

Huck takes Paps gun into the nearbywoods, kills a hog, and takes the hogback to his camp. He smashes in thedoor of the cabin with an ax, takes thepig inside, and slits its throat so thatits blood covers the dirt floor of thecabin. Huck wishes Tom could join himto throw in the fancy touches. Huckthen bloodies the ax, sticks some ofhis own pulled-out hair onto the blade,and slings the tool into a corner of thecabin. He also takes a sack full of rocksand the pig carcass and dumps both inthe river. Finally, Huck takes the bagof meal out of his canoe and back tothe house, rips it open, and carries thesack about a hundred yards from thehouse, trailing meal as he does so. Healso drops Paps whetstone at the spotwhere he stops trailing the grain. ThenHuck ties the bag of meal so it stopssifting out and returns to his canoe.

Freedom, as Hucks actions prove here, isnot free. Huck literally sacrifices a hog tomake sure that his escape goesunnoticed, and that he himself cansuccessfully disappear into his newfoundfreedom. Though Huck now wishes hisescape to be stylish as Tom would haveit, later, when freeing Jim from the PhelpsFarm, Huck will wish Tom were morepractical, suggesting that he has animmature attitude about style now thathe grows out of over the course of thenovel. Certainly, though Huck has whatcould be called a practicalimaginationhe thinks of how to tie upevery loose end in his escape.

As Huck waits for the moon to comeout so that he can travel by its light, heeats, smokes, and thinks to himselfthat people looking for him after hisescape, thinking him dead, will followthe trail left by the sack full of rocks tothe river and afterwards dredge theriver for his body, as well as the trail ofmeal in order to find the robbers thatkilled [him]. He is sure, though, thatnobody will think that he is alive, muchless find him. He plans to paddle to aplace called Jacksons Island on theriver, and to visit towns at night tostock up on supplies. Huck soon fallsasleep, only to soon wake. It looks lateto Huck, and smelt late too, thoughHuck acknowledges that he doesntknow how to put the sensation inwords.

Huck reveals himself to be veryempathetic here. He imagines howpeople would react to a set ofcircumstances, like the trail left by therocks leading down to the river. However,Hucks empathy is limited. It may extendto a search party, for example, but it willnot extend to people like Jim, who Huckthinks of as being, in some ways, inferiorto white people, until Huck matures.That being said, Huck does have aunique imagination that will enable himto so mature, as indicated by thestrangely imagined sensation he has ofsmelling lateness

Huck hears a sound. It is Pap paddlingback to the cabin. Huck loses no timein slipping quietly down the river in hiscanoe, shaded by the bank. Hepaddles down the center of the riverto avoid being hailed by people on theferry landing before, at last, reachingJacksons Island, like a steamboatwithout any lights. Huck lands andconceals his canoe. In the darkness, hesees a raft go by the island and hears aman on the raft shout commands tosomeone onboard with him. Huckgoes into the woods to get some sleepbefore breakfast.

Huck at last stages his escape intofreedom. The place he lands, JacksonsIsland, is hospitable to him, as asteamboat is hospitable, but is notfunctional as society is, and it is alsolonely for Huck. This is all indicated bythe fact that Jacksons Island is like asteamboat without lights, lights being asign of human presence. Nature offersHuck a society consisting only of himself.



CHAPTER 8Huck wakes and takes in hissurroundings, like a couple squirrels,Huck says, that jabbered at me veryfriendly. Soon Huck hears a boom!sound. Looking upstream, he sees aferry firing a canon, which, Huckfigures, is being done to make his owncarcass come to the rivers surface.Hungry, Huck remembers that peoplelooking for carcasses in the river putquicksilver in loaves of bread and floatthem down the river, because theyalways go right to the drowned bodyand stop there. Huck retrieves such aloaf and is pleased to learn that ittastes better than the low-downcorn-pone that he usually eats.

After being locked up with the hostilePap, Huck finds even squirrels to bewelcoming. However, this scene is latercontrasted with scenes in which nature isvery dangerous. Although Huck is free innature, he could not survive therewithout human society for very long. Itsironic, though, that here society providesHuck, albeit unknowingly, with betterfood to eat when he is presumed dead,than when he is alive.

Huck thinks that the Widow orparson must have prayed for a loaf ofbread to find his body, and, indeed,one did. He figures that whensomebody like the Widow or parsonprays, the prayer is answered, but thatwhen someone like him prays, theprayer goes unanswered.

Hucks thoughts on prayer have changedby this passage: whereas before he putsno stock in prayer, here Huck comes tothink that good peoples prayers areanswered, and that bad peoples are not.He sees himself as bad, because societyhas long equated his poverty andwildness with badness, though it isobvious to readers that Huck is not badat all, revealing societys hypocrisy.

Huck hides behind a long near theislands shore to observe the ferry asit passes. Many people he knows areonboard, including Pap, JudgeThatcher, and Tom Sawyer, all ofwhom are talking about Hucksmurder. The captain tells them toscan the shore of Jackson Island forthe corpse, and all of them do so, butnone see Huck even though he is veryclose by. The cannon is fired, and Huckimagines that, had it been loaded, theblast would have killed him. The ferrydrifts on downstream.

Huck is maybe too curious about howsociety thinks about his murder for hisown good. Overhearing discussionsonboard the ferry almost gets Huckwounded, after all, and he could haveeven been killed. He would do well toenjoy his freedom at a distance frompeople, at least for now.

Huck makes a tent, catches a catfishto eat, and puts in more fishing lines tocatch breakfast. He begins to feellonesome, however, and decides to goto bed. Such is his routine for the nextthree days and nights. He thinks ofhimself as the boss of JacksonsIsland. One day, however, afterrunning across a snake and trying toshoot it, Huck comes across the yet-smoking ashes of a campfire. Henervously returns to his camp andhides his things. He himself hides in atree. When it gets dark, Huck paddlesto the Illinois bank of the river,prepares supper, and decides to stayput for the rest of the night.

Huck is not as free in nature as wouldmake him comfortable. He has tocontend with life-threatening dangerslike snakes, and also other people out innature, like those looking for him whocould revoke his freedom, or, even moredangerous, violent fugitives. Huck is inneed of people he can trust and who canhelp him at this point. He will experiencedifficulties impossible to overcomewithout friends.

Suddenly, Huck hears the sound ofhorses and human voices. He shovesout in his canoe and ties up back to hisold place. There he tries to get somesleep, but cant, for thinking.Restless, Huck goes into the woodswith his gun, to re-find the campfireashes he discovered earlier. Thoughhe has no luck, later he does see a fire.A man is sleeping nearby: it is Jim.Huck greets him, but Jim jumps up,then falls to his knees, begging Hucknot to hurt him, for he thinks Huck is aghost. Huck succeeds in convincingJim that he is not, in fact, a ghost.Huck also finds that he is no longerlonesome having found Jim.

Just as things become desperate for him,Huck discovers a friend in Jim, withwhom he can negotiate the difficulties ofnature and of society alike. Withcharacteristic superstition, however, Jim,thinking that Huck was murdered, isafraid that Huck is a ghost.

Huck learns that Jim came toJacksons Island the night after Huckwas allegedly killed, and that therunaway slave has been living onnothing but strawberries. Huck setsup camp and brings out his provisionsof meal, bacon, and coffee, all of whichJim thinks is done by witchcraft. Huckalso catches a catfish, which he andJim enjoy for breakfast. The two eattill theyre stuffed and laze in thegrass.

That Jim thinks that Huck summonscreature comforts by witchcraft speaksto how poorly Jim has been faring;because the target of racial oppression,Jim cant eat as well as Huck, and socant fathom doing so without magicbeing the cause. Together, Huck and Jimcan live in relative peace.

If it wasnt Huck killed in the cabin,Jim asks Huck, who was killed? Huckthen explains his escape to Jim, whopraises the plan as being worthy ofTom Sawyer himself. In turn, Huckasks Jim how he came to be onJacksons Island. Jim, reticent at first,has Huck swear to silence, whichHuck does, and he assures Jim that hewill honor his oath even if people callhim a low down Abolitionist. Jimexplains that Miss Watson treatedhim poorly and often threatened tosell him to a slaveholder in NewOrleans. One night, Jim overheardMiss Watson say that, even thoughshe doesnt want to sell him, she couldget eight hundred dollars for him, andso has decided to sell. Consequently,Jim fled, doing so by water to avoidbeing tracked by men and dogs. Heeventually swam up to JacksonsIsland.

While it is good of Huck to swear to keepJims secret, it is ironic that he thinks ofbeing called an abolitionist a bad thing.Abolitionists fight for the freedom of theoppressed, which, the novel holds, isbetter than fighting to oppress. ThoughHuck doesnt understand that now, hewill later in the novel. This section of thenovel also reveals some of the cruelties ofslavery as an institution: Miss Watson,who claims to be a Christian, valuesmoney more than she does a humanwho, in Christian belief, has an immortaland infinitely valuable soul. Jim is alsotreated cruelly, and hunted like ananimal.



Some young birds fly by Jim and Huck.Jim says that this is a sign that it isgoing to rain, for chickens flying bysignify rain, and so, Jim figures, thesame must be the case with youngbirds. Huck makes to kill one of thebirds, but Jim stops him saying thatdoing so would be death. Jim explainsthat his father was once very sick, andone of Jims relatives caught a bird,and Jims grandma said his fatherwould die, and his father did. Jim goeson to list things that bring bad luck,like counting what one is going to eatand shaking a tablecloth aftersundown.

In the wild, Huck and Jim need to dowhatever they can to survive, butsuperstitions sometimes get in the way ofcommon-sense survivalist actions, likeJims superstition about birds. Huck andJim could eat the birds, but, because ofan irrational, impractical superstition,they refrain from doing so. Jims list ofsuperstitions reveals how arbitrarysuperstitions are.

Huck asks if there are any good-lucksigns. Jim says there are very few, andthat theyre not very useful, becausetheres no reason to know if good luckis coming ones way. For example, Jimsays, if you have hairy arms and a hairychest, its a sign that you will be rich.Huck asks Jim if he has hairy arms anda hairy chest, which Jim does. ThoughJim admits he isnt rich now, he sayshe was once rich, recounting how helost his money speculating in livestockand a bank. But at last, Jim thinks, he isrich now, because he owns himself,and he is worth eight hundred dollars.He wishes he had that money, becausethen he wouldn want no mo.

Here Jim reveals that underlying hissuperstition is an expectation that badluck is always around the corner, which iswell founded considering that Jim issocioeconomically and raciallyoppressed. He expects bad thingsbecause he is often afflicted with badthings. Jim also reveals here how aconcept like wealth is relative. Eventhough he is not wealthy by societalstandards, he knows that he is wealthy ifonly because hes free. Freedom alonemakes one sufficiently rich. The conceptof Jim getting $800 for himself also,though, highlights the craziness ofanyone getting money for selling anyoneelse. Jim is worth more than $800hesworth an infinite amount as a humanbeing. By having Jim value himselfaccording to slaverys terms, the novelshows how slavery makes no sense.

CHAPTER 9In the morning, Huck wants to find themiddle of the island, so he and Jim setout and find it. This place is a high hillor ridge with a cavern in its side. Jimconvinces Huck that the two of themshould hide their gear in the cavern incase people come looking for them.He also convinces Huck to hide thecanoe nearby. Having hiddeneverything, Huck and Jim eat in thecavern.

While freedom is very important to Huck,it is all the more so for Jim, who facessevere punishment if he is caught, and alife of enslavement and separation fromhis beloved family. For this reason, Jim isall the more protective of his freedomand so takes extra precautions, likehiding the gear in the cavern.

Outside, it begins to rain fiercely.Huck is very content, however, andJim points out that Huck wouldnt bein the cavern were it not for him, thatHuck would be out in the woodsdrowning in the rain. Duringsubsequent days, Huck and Jimpaddle all over the flooded island intheir canoe. Animals abound, meekwith hunger. Jim and Huck see saw-logs drift by, but leave them for fear ofbeing discovered. Indeed, the pairnever goes out in daylight.

At the beginning of the novel, Huck isracist and has little respect for theintelligence of black people. However,Huck is forced to acknowledge his ownprejudice as Jim proves again and againthat he is just as reasonable andpractical as his white companion. Hesaved Huck from the storm, and hiscautiousness protects Huck too.

One night a two-story cabin floats by.Though Huck and Jim board the cabinthrough a window, it is too dark to seeanything, so they lash their canoe tothe cabin and wait to explore tillmorning. At dawn, the two look intothe cabin. They see furniture and whatJim identifies as a dead man, shot inthe back, whose face, Jim tells Huck, istoo gashly to look at. Also on thefloor of the cabin are cards, whiskybottles, black masks; and on the wallsthere are words scribbled in charcoal.Jim and Huck take some men andwomens clothing from the house intothe canoe, along with other supplies.Huck and Jim then shove off from thehouse, Jim lying down in the canoeand covered with a quilt to avoiddiscovery, and the pair drifts safelydownriver.

Though it is not revealed here, the corpsethat Jim discovers is that of Hucksfather, Pap. Jim, shows a kind of parentalcare for Huck by refusing to reveal this toHuck, to protect Huck from the scene ofhis fathers brutal murder. The evidenceJim and Huck discover in the cabinsuggests that Pap was drunk, maybecheated at cards for personal gain, andwas murdered by the men whom hecheated, who wore masks to committheir crime. Pap was vicious to the end.Despite the gory scene, Huck and Jim areresourceful enough to take from thecabin what they can use.

CHAPTER 10Huck wonders who shot the deadman he and Jim discovered, and why,but Jim doesnt tell him because itwould fetch bad luck. The pair findsmoney stashed in a coat, which leadsJim to speculate that the people in thehouse stole the coat; otherwise theywould have known money was in itand wouldnt have left it. Huck wantsto discuss the dead man more, but Jimrefuses.

Jim withholds the identity of the deadman from Huck not because hesuperstitiously thinks that doingotherwise would fetch bad luck, but toprotect Huck. In doing so, Jim showshimself to be a caring, loving, gentle, andemotionally intelligent humanbeingtraits that slavery never grants toslaves.

In response, Huck reminds Jim ofhow, a few days earlier

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