- How are religion and superstition commented upon? Through which characters?
- How is Huck's father characterized, both through showing and telling (differentiate between the two modes)
- Comment on the symbolism of the Mississippi in relation to the tensions of Man and Society
- What do we learn about Jim from his talking about "King Sollermun"?
4 comments:
O comentário acerca da religião é tecido por Huckleberry, cuja perspectiva na matéria é absolutamente anti-metafísica e hiper-pragmática. Huck não vê o propósito de qualquer espécie de reflexão acerca das acções de homens que morreram há muitos anos atrás ("but by and by she let out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time, so then I didn't care no more about him; because I don't take no stock in dead people", pag.14-15), e critica a hipocrisia e a falta de pragmatismo da viúva: "That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was a bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself" (pág.15). Por causa deste mesmo pragmatismo, Huck não acha o conceito da vida eterna no paraíso particularmente apelativo (pág.16), expressando, ironicamente, a ideia bastante profunda do horror perante a eternidade.
Jim é a personagem que normalmente aborda a questão da superstição, pois esta era algo que estava associado aos escravos negros nesta altura: "Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, 'Hm! What do you know 'bout witches?' and that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat.". Jim fala de numerosas superstições ao longo da obra, nomeadamente a "five-center piece around his neck with a string" (pág.19), e a ideia de que tocar na pele de uma cobra traz grande infortúnio (pág.63). No entanto, por vezes as superstições de Jim não são superstições de todo, tal como é provado quando Jim é mordido por uma cobra momentos após ser criticado por Huckleberry (pág. 63).
Huck’s father was from a low class:
Through showing:
“He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down(…). As for his clothes – just rags.” (Chapter V)
Through telling:
“(…) and pap he always said it, too, though he warn’t no more quality than a mud-cat” (Chapter XVIII)
Huck’s father was superstitious:
Through showing:
“I didn’t notice anything at first, but next I did. There was a cross in the left boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil.” (Chapter IV)
Huck’s father teach Huck what he knew:
Through showing:
“Your mother couldn’t read and she couldn’t write, nuther, before she died. None of the family couldn’t, before they died. I can’t; and here you’re a-swelling yourself up like this.” (Chapter V)
Through telling:
“Pap always said it warn’t no harm to borrow things, if you was meaning to pay them back(…)” (Chapter XII)
“If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way.” (Chapter XIX)
Huck’s father was an alcoholic:
Trough showing:
“Why didn’t you roust me out?” “Well I tried to, but I couldn’t; I couldn’t budge you.” (Chapter VII) – Huck didn’t try to wake up his father, but he knew that it is difficult to wake up an alcoholic and he used it.
“(…) and every time he got drunk he raised Cain around town(…)” (Chapter VI)
“(…) and traded fish and game for whiskey” (Chapter VI)
“ Tramp – tramp – tramp; that’s the dead; tramp – tramp – tramp; they’re coming after me(…)” (Chapter VI)
KANSU EKİN TANCA
Huck’s father plays an important role in Huck’s life. In addition to his actual involvement in the narrative, his ideas and knowledge are often quoted or referred by Huck himself. Huck’s father is ‘told’ mainly by Huck (the narrator), as well as the other characters in the narrative, such as Jim, one of the children in the Gang, and the woman in Chapter XI. He is also ‘shown’ in the narrative and his movement as well as his appearance are described by Huck.
Huck reflects his own ideas about his father and the reader eventually understands why Huck is “scared of him”. (p.31) In addition to this, Huck also represents his father through ‘showing’, and thus gives direct information about him. He describes his movement too. While he is talking about his father’s drinking habits he repeats the word “drink” to emphasise his activity. (“He drank, and drank, and tumbled down on his blankets”. (p.41).) Therefore, the reader is invited to imagine Huck’s father through these descriptions. When he says “He was most fifty, and he looked it.”, the reader understands that his appearance also suits to his qualities (p.31). Huck also depicts his father’s “natural self” that he is “not in a good humour” (p.37). By doing this, he reveals his qualities through ‘telling’ (p.37).
However, Huck is not the only character who talks about Huck’s father. Another character who comments on Huck’s father is Jim. Through the hair-ball, he talks about the two angels his father has, and how these angels direct his movements. After Jim uses the hair-ball, he also talks further on this subject, thus the reader gets more information about him, through ‘telling’ (p.30)
Another example can be the scene, in which he tries to join the Gang. Some children do not want him as he does not have a family. They know that his father is always drunk and that it is almost impossible to find him. (p.21)
In Chapter XI, the woman also provides the reader with the same information. “She told (….) all about pap and what a hard lot he was.”(p.67). Therefore, the reader combines both the ‘told’ and ‘shown’ information together, through different characters and different perspectives.
Huck’ father is also defined against the widow as their relationship with Huck is very different. Whereas the widow is trying to “sivilize” him, his father behaves as “Finn’s boss.” (p.13; p.36). With the widow, Huck “eats on a plate,” “gets up regular” and does not smoke. On the contrary, Huck’s father has “no objections” to any sorts of unkind behaviour (p.37). This can be a different use of ‘telling’ in which Huck depicts his father through comparing him with the widow.
Huck Finn is practical. Huck Finn is, also, very superstitious.
Around him, these two characteristics are constantly dueling with each other, without Huck having conscience of that.
When he is being "civilised" and respectable by the Widow, he does not think much of anything that he is learning. Moses is nothing more than a dead man, and Hell and Heaven are just a bad and a good place. Whether one goes to Heaven or Hell depends on the company one might find there. In the same night that the Widow speaks about the "good and the bad place", Huck contemplates death for the first time. And, instead of praying (which might be the obvious thing to do after a lecture about religion), Huck decides to "got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast every time, and then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep withces away." He concerned over this subject for a bit more, until Tom Sawyer called upon him. Of course, the cause for shaking and being terrified was the single act of killing a spider.
Furthermore, when declared by Miss Watson that whenever one prays, one gets what one wants, Huck considers this for a while and reaches the conclusion that it is not true at all. But when Tom Sawyer speaks about genies in lamps, Huck cannot resist and must go to the woods and rub an old tin lamp in order to see his desires fulfilled.
In conclusion, in Huck's world and mind, religion is not at all practical nor reasonable, but superstition is very real and credible, inspite of the protaganist practical sense.
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