Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1).

Mark Twain. 1884. Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. 1982.

Why read it? A vivid re-creation of the time of slavery in the U.S. A moral dilemma for Huck who, in helping Jim, the escaped black, is violating the law.

Ideas:

“Notice: Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. By Order of the Author.” p. 619.

“She [Miss Watson] said all a body would have to do there [in Heaven] was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever…didn’t think much of it….” p. 626.

Huck: “…the wind was trying to whisper something to me and I couldn’t make out what it was.” p. 627.

“Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in the candle, and before I could budge, it all shriveled up…an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck.” p. 627.

“There was a place on my ankle that got to itching; but I dasn’t scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right between my shoulders…like I’d die if I couldn’t scratch…was itching in eleven different places now.” p. 629.

Tom Sawyer: “I’ve seen it in books; and so of course that’s what we’ve got to do.” p. 633.

Tom Sawyer’s gang plans to stop stage coaches, and kill the inhabitants and steal their watches and money. He’s seen it in books.

Tom Sawyer: “Kill the women? No…you fetch them to the cave, and you’re always as polite as pie to them, and by-and-by they fall in love with you and never want to go home any more.” p. 634.

Ben Rogers: “Mighty soon we’ll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows waiting to be ransomed, that there won’t be no place for the robbers.” p. 634.

Huck: “I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don’t Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork…can’t the Widow get back her silver snuff-box that was stole…can’t Miss Watson fat up?” p. 635.

To be continued.