1. Comment on the symbolism of vessels - rafts, ferrys, skiffs inside abandoned boats, people smuggled or smuggling on these vessels - in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Compare with other literary examples, either from this course or simply that you know of.
2. Text analysis practice - try your hand at the following excerpt from chapter XII
"Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hillsides, nothing but just a shiny bed of lights; not a house could you see. The fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit up. In St. Petersburg they used to say there was twenty or thirty thousand people in St. Louis, but I never believed it till I see that wonderful spread of lights at two o’clock that still night. There warn’t a sound there; everybody was asleep.
Every night now I used to slip ashore towards ten o’clock at some little village, and buy ten or fifteen cents’ worth of meal or bacon or other stuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn’t roosting comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said, take a chicken when you get a chance, because if you don’t want him yourself you can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain’t ever forgot. I never see pap when he didn’t want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway.
Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields and borrowed a watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or things of that kind. Pap always said it warn’t no harm to borrow things if you was meaning to pay them back some time; but the widow said it warn’t anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it. Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap was partly right; so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three things from the list and say we wouldn’t borrow them any more – then he reckoned it wouldn’t be no harm to borrow the others."
2 comments:
Throughout the chapters XII and XIII of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Huck and Jim sail in a raft through the river making a couple of stops to get food and other supplies. On one stormy night, the two characters come across a sunk steamboat.
The focus on the vessels in these chapters recalls the Western literary tradition of water transports as symbols of adventure and curiosity, but also of trials and unpredictable situations. When Huck insists on exploring the steamboat to search for possible treasures, he incorporates the curious and adventurous character of many heroes from travel narratives, such as Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. However, as he enters the vessel his curiosity proves to have brought him danger.
Huck has to escape the boat in order to not be found, hence he faces a trial. Not a trial where he has to prove his heroic abilities - like Odysseus - but to survive. This encounter also highlights the unpredictability of being on the water. Although the scene is placed on a river, it showcases how bodies of water - especially ones on stormy nights - enable lawless behavior among people. This type of behavior is also showcased in The Heroic Slave by Frederick Douglas where a new order is established on the ship, the slaves become free and the previous crew is captured or killed.
Overall, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn explores the different meanings a vessel can typically have, from adventure to unpredictable behavior. Additionally, Huck seems to go through both a physical and mental journey in the text.
It is expectable for a hero to come victorious no matter the circumstances, or is it no matter the means? Either way, a fall from grace is very welcoming in order to spice up the plot, just as the above excerpt touches the themes of Good and Evil, and bares similitudes with Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s“Goodman Brown”.
Although unintentional, Rip falls asleep for 20 years, leaving his children solely under the care of their mother — and even when awake, he wasn’t much of a provider, "Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, it was impossible”. This neglect is a very strong link between to Pap, since both fathers tend to leave their duty to outward circumstances, “Pap always said it warn’t no harm to borrow things (…)”, in this specific scenario, the least Pap could have done was to feed his own son. It is recognisable, though, that Rip is a better father than Pap, because at least he’s not abusive and his children do not have to fear him, whereas Huckleberry decides to fake his own death and face the dangers aboard the raft. Finn’s innocence in the following quote “I never see pap when he didn’t want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway” is actually very funny to the reader, because one can clearly understand that the father’s reasoning would never compel him to do that, hence why Finn has never once witness such an event.
Moreover, in “Goodman Brown”, the reader finds a similar dilemma of what to do when confronted with the Good and the Evil. Faith, his wife, represents his spiritual angel, just like widow is the angel sitting on Finn’s shoulder, telling him is no good to “borrow” from others without their permission. The Devil, with his persuasive talk, (“Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness”), evokes the idea of giving in to temptation; his staff resembling a serpent might actually be an allusion to the Fall of Eve. This character is, in the circumstances of the excerpt, a correspondent to Pap, who encourages the son to satisfy himself at the cost of others.
Post a Comment