Huck Discussion Questions: XXXVI – XXXXIX

Written Assignment

In the book an element predominant is the critical to the Romanticism. This critical is represented in the two important chapter: Huck and Tom Sawyer and in how they relate. Tom Sawyer represents the Romanticism. He is a dreamer, he wants to be adventurous but the deeds he does are just imagination. Huck is the completely opposite. He is very realistic and practical. The society generally follow Tom’s model and is for that reason that Huck can judge it and notice the bad in it from an outward point of view.

The critical of Romanticism can be noticed in the arrival of Tom. Huck had to free Jim, he wanted to free him because he loves him as a friend. To do that he was thinking to a simple and effective plan that would let him make Jim free with no problem. When Tom arrived e brought with him all his ideas of adventures, full of exciting details. Tom plan to free Jim was full of particularities and adventurous elements but it wasn’t effective as Huck’s one. Tom didn’t want to free Jim because they were friend but just to live and adventure.

The failure of Tom’s plan and so of the Romanticism, is represented when Tom got shot. He wanted to make a plan so full of adventurous elements that in the end it makes it more dangerous. The Romanticism is only something ephemeral that can be fantastic but that can’t have a practical application. It’s useless.

Huck Discussion Question XL – Chapter the last

1.     Jim is extremely kind towards Tom. He puts his friends in front of him. He is very grateful to them because they helped him so now he want to return the pleasure. Jim is a human like all the others, he show friendship, love, brave and strength in pursuing a goal too.

2.     A doctor is generally a very respectable person. The doctor that advocates Jim’s cause makes people behave differently towards Jim. People trust the doctor and accept Jim. I thinks that’s  good thing but however people should more thing with their mind. Jim is always the same Jim, with or without the doctor. People hardly trust others, it’s always needed a recommendation.

3.     The bullet represents Tom’s deed and the boy does a necklace with it to show it everyone as a prize. Tom has finally realized his dream to live and extreme adventures as a main character and survive.

4.     In the end of the novel Huck goes looking for more exciting adventures. Huck doesn’t fell part of the society and he doesn’t want to be either. So he escapes, following his freedom going to next adventurous experience.

5.     The fact that the book is told in first person let the reader identify himself in the character and live the adventures as he really faces them. The only deficit is that the facts are always told by the same point of view, there is no space for other prospective because Huck isn’t omniscient, so he can’t know everything but only what happens to him, lived by himself, so with his emotions and feelings. Having an omniscient narrator probably would have given the reader an idea more completed on all the story, let him know about the most particular details and the opinions of more character.

Huck Discussion Questions: XXXI – XXXV

1.     Chapter 31 can be considered the climax of the story because in this chapter there is a big change in Huck behavior. Before that he always underwent passively what happens around him, we was confused and not to chose a street he just left the events to pass. But in chapter 31 Huck takes a decision, gives him a direction, and he peruses it. He decides to go against the law and the society, but doing the right thing: free Jim.

2.     The irony is in the statements itself because it states two opposite thing in one sentence: “all right”, with positive value and “I’ll go to hell” with negative value. The point is that Huck really did the right choice, help Jim, but however he went against the society so he really believes that despite he did a good action he’ll go to hell.

3.     In the beginning of chapter 32 there is the description of the plantation where Jim works. This place look likes a typical western farm but isolated and abandoned, it is ruined. It represents the old life of Huck, a life that doesn’t belong to him anymore. It is used to symbolize his rebirth.

4.     Providence is a very religious place, where everything is linked with God and faith. Here Huck reconsiders his position towards religion, he becomes more faithful. Of course Miss Watson would agree with that because she is a very religious woman who always tried to teach God teachings to Huck, and she would be fine to know that he is startin to believe or a list to consider the hypothesis.

5.     The irony is the fact that even though in the steamboat accident there were some casualties, they were all niggers and so Mrs. Phelps says that there were not casualties because she doesn’t consider niggers as people but just as things.

6.     The themes that appear here is romanticism against realism. Tom Sawyer is the major represent of romanticism while Huck represents the practical realism.

7.     Tom is looking for adventures, he is a dreamer and want to project a plan rich of exciting details according to his romantic personality. Huck wants just to make Jim, his friend, free, without any complications.

8.     Generally men thinks only to their business and this can make them mean and their souls corrupted. Huck is apart of this society because he is free. His soul is still pure and he can notice the cruelty in human behaviors because he is out of the society.

9.     In the beginning Tom agrees and let Huck steals the watermelon but after Huck does it, he blame Huck saying that stealing is ok only if they need it due to the escape. However stealing is always stealing.

10. Huck let tom Tome take the control because he admires Tom very much. Tome is his model, as a person and as adventures too.

Huck Discussion Questions: 26/31

1.     In chapter 26 Huck steal money to give them to three poor girls, while in chapter 31 he helps Jim to escape from the plantation he ware sold. In both situation Huck goes against the law, in the first because he steals, in the second because letting a slave to escape is one of the worst crime you can commit. But Huck is good boy and when he can help, always do it. The opposite forces fighting inside Huck are the doing correctly against doing well. If Huck would have acted correctly he would have respected the law, and he didn’t do what he did but Huck follows his heart. The declaration is ironic because Huck is really convinced he’ll go to the hell but actually he acted well, he helped people, so he shouldn’t worry much.

2.     Huck couldn’t pray a lie because God always knows the truth so it wouldn’t have no sense. He writes the letter because if Jim has to be a slave, at least he wants Ms. Widow, his owner, to have it. However by writing Huck can organized his ideas, and knowing after all what is right to do: free Jim.

3.     He realized that this was the right thing to do. Jim for Huck isn’t more an object, he is becoming a sort of friend, or however a normal person with feelings and dreams, and he is ready to make him free.

Huck Discussion Questions: XXI – XXIII

1.     The description of the people who live in the Arkansas town in Chapter XXI is the practical example of the quote form Twain’s “The Damned Human Race”. They are cruel, they like to lynch each other and see sufferance and pain.

2.     Because Huck knows the truth about the duke and the king, he knows they are not good person. He doesn’t want to get in troubles either.

3.     Twain criticizes the importance given to the honor. In the South it is considered something you have to defend with your life too. In the Sherburn/Boggs episode happens that Sherburn who is a Colonel kills Boggs, who is drunk because this is bothering him.

4.     The circus can entertain the people better than the show of the duke and the king. The people are illiterate so they can’t understand the depth in the Shakespeare’s drama, while they prefer to watch to something funny and hilarious like the circus whose style is “low” as people culture.

5.     Huck thinks that the most deceived is the ringmaster and this show’s that he is still a naïve boy because in the reality the trick was played on the public, who result the most deceived.

6.     Twain expresses that generally men likes and wants to do what is considered dangerous, forbidden and reserved only to few people. This show another time the men silliness.

7.     Twain put the criminals on the same level of the kings and dukes because as criminal steal in robbery and use money as they want, kings “steal” by excessive taxation and waste a lot of money for their fun, and both of them has lot of secret about their bad action.

8.     The story of Lizabeth, the girl dead cause the scarlet fever, makes Jim miss his children a lot. He care about them and he is a good father and it’s normal he wants his children with him. This episode change a bit Huck’s opinion about Jim, that now looks more human, as a normal father.

9.   Huckleberry Finn is a young boy who lives with the Widow Douglas and her sister Mss Watson. The widow take care of him as he was her soon and makes him go to school and pretends he to behave politely and especially tries to teach him religion. Huck best friend is Tom Sawyer. The two boys like a lot the adventures so they creates a gang whose goals are robberies of treasures and murders of enemies. But all the deeds they should make are just adventure in the imagination, agreeing with Tom’s romanticism. The most they do is to raid in a Sunday school picnic, scary some children and steal some candies. One day Huck see Pap footprints in the snow and imagines he is back because he heard that Huck has 600 000$, money he found with Tom. Huck doesn’t want Pap to take the money so goes to Judge Thatcher, the man who is holding them for him, and gives all of them to him. When Pap and Huck meet Pap tells Huck that he dislikes his lifestyle, that he wants his money and that he has to come to live with him. There is a lawsuit about that because the widow doesn’t want let Huck with I father, he is violent. In the end the judge, who is new in town, assigns the care of the kid to his Pap. So Huck starts to live with Pap in a dirty and ruined house out of the town. He doesn’t dislike the new life because he has more liberties and not a lot of rules. But Pap keeps him locked in the house and often coming back home drunk, rips Huck. So Huck decides he wants to leaves everything and everyone and escape. One day while Pap is out he succeeds to escape from the house. Artfully, he makes his house how there was a robbery and he was killed so that no one would have looked for him. So he goes out and taken a canoe, founded some days before, starts flow down the river. He rushes until Jackson Island. Here he meets Jim, Mss Watson’s nigger, who is escaped because he heard that Mss Watson wanted to sell him and he didn’t. They started to lives together on the island. One day Huck decides to play a trick to Jim: he puts a snake in his bad, which is a sign of bad luck, indeed the nigger get bit but it isn’t so serious and Jim recover soon. Another time they find the body of a dead man and to understand what was happened they go to the men house where they find clothing stuff. They decide that to know the news from the town Huck should dress up as a girl and go on the shore asking. He does in this way but the woman who asked for information discovers his male identity so he reveals he is a boy but give her a fake name. Huck knows about the reward on Pap, accused for his(Huck) murder and on Jim, the slave escaped and notices that Jim reward is higher than Pap’s. Then the two go on a steamboat called “The Walter Scott”. Here there is a really gang of criminals who want to kill one of the member. They leave because it is dangerous and the boat is sinking. However Huck want to save the men from the sinking because even though they are criminal he imagines that one day he will be a criminal too and will be fine to receive help. So he tells to a men in the harbor that on the boat there is the child of the richest men of the town and that saving him would make him gain a big reward. But the man has not time and the boat sinks. Huck and Jim continuing to rush down the river. Jim want to go in then free lands to obtain the freedom. Huck isn’t sure that help a nigger to escape is the right thing to do, especially because Jim is Mss Watson’s slave, but however he leaves the facts occur. One night on the river it is terribly foggy and the two lose each other. Jim worry a lot about Huck and when they meet again Huck play another trick on Jim and the nigger was very sad for this. They are divided another time, this time on the land. Huck arrives to an house, the Grangerfords’ house, where he is welcome by the family as a friend. Huck really likes the family and spends a very good time with them especially with another boy of his age, Bugg. By the time he discovers that the family is implied in a feud with an enemy family, the Shepherdsons and that they uses to kill each other without any reason even tough to continue a “tradition”. On day Grangerfords’ daughter asks Huck to go to the church to fetch the Bible she left there. Huck does it and discovers that in the book there is a peace of paper with a time written on, but not understanding what that means he just carries the bock back to Grangerfords’ daughter. She thanks him and make him promise not to tell that to anyone. In the afternoon Huck meet Jim again and they are both happy of this. In the night Huck wakes up and notices that there is no one at home. He discovers that they are all hunting for Grangerfords’ daughter who has escaped with Shepherdsons’ son to marry. The member of both families start to fight, killing each other. Bugg is killed too and Huck very scared run away, look for Jim and when he meet him, the couple restart flowing down the river. One day they meet two guys who are running away from a group of people. Huck saves them welcoming them on the boat. The two guys say to be one a King and one a Duke, they say they lost their money and so their power and they are very sad for this. To make them happier Huck and Jim start treat them as they are royalists. To earn some money the duke and the king decide to put on a part of a Shakespeare drama and played it in the next town. Once there no one go to the show, while a lot of people go to see another show, the Nonesuch, that is hilarious so people like it. Next Huck, Jim, the king and the duke arriving in another town in Arkansas. Here Huck assists to the murder of a drunk man, Buggs, killed by the Colonel Sherburne because he was continuing to bother him. The murder happens in the middle of the street in front of a lot of people, Buggs’ daughter included. A group of people go to lynch Sherburne but once there the colonel succeeds to defend himself by a great speech. The same night there is the another show of the duke and the king but only twelve people come to see it. So for the next days the couple decide to play a comic play. The shows obtains, at lest in the beginning, a good success. But after three days of the same play people are bored of the show. The group go away, the duke and the king gained 465$. In the night Huck understand the Jim’s love toward his family. Hearing a thud far away Jim remember when his, Lizabeth, daughter died and he didn’t do anything to save her but left her alone and he is so sad for this.

Huck Discussion Questions: XV – XX

1.     The fog is the element that signs the passage to the freedom. It is the obstacle to overcome to achieve the freedom. It signs the rebirth. In the fog the two characters lose each other who meet again after, when the fog is gone. The river can be considered the individuals and the fog the society that oppresses the individuals. The exit from the fog is the exit form the oppression of the society.

2.     Huck realizes he hurts Jim a lot, and he has to say sorry to him. In this part, for the first time Huck shows his feelings; he can be sorry to someone else because he is a human.

3.     Discussion about quotes:

a.     Huck has a strange feeling because on one side is glad to have helped Jim, on the other he feels guilty because let a slave to escape is one of the worst crime he can do, only murder is worse.

b.     The irony is that Jim has to steel or buy his own children, and that this is considered crime. Children should stay with the parents, and that’s a nature laws who with anyone should interfere.

c.      Huck reflects about acting good or bad. He doesn’t understand why he should act rightly if that will bring him troubles, while acting wrong without having troubles will have the same consequence.

d.     Jim is talking about bad luck especially referred to the snake episode.

4.     The bounty hunters give Huck money because they thought he and “his ill father” need help, giving the money is the middle way between directly help and not help at all. In the reality there is any ill father, it’s only a trick to let Jim go in the free land. The irony is right this, that the bounty hunters believe to Huck words, that he was on the raft with his very ill father, so they don’t go close to him and leave him money to help him, while in the reality is all a trick.

5.     The new technology that destroys the old symbolizes that the emerging industrial society won’t take care of the nature but that only consume (destroy) its sources.

6.     Twain wanted to write a sequel to “Tom Sawyer’s adventures” but he didn’t know how. He started a book called “Life on Mississippi” about adventures along the Mississippi river. By the time he met interesting people that give him the inspiration to write about “Huckleberry Finn”, affording the theme of the slavery and the racism against blacks. The book is writing later, when the slavery was already over, but however racism wasn’t ended and there were groups of people as the Ku Klux Klan extremely against blacks and people who helped blacks too.

7.     In the description of the house Taiwan talks satirically about the romantic idea of the death, making fun of it. The family can be considered incoherent because they go to the Church and believe in God and pretend to behave politely, but as out of the Church they take on the weapons and go against the enemy family without any specific reason.

8.     Huck takes fun of Buck because he is able to see how silly “the Feudus”, romantic societies whose Buck’s values are, are.

9.     In the reaction of Buck question about “Moses and the candles” Huck shows his concrete practicality and his realism. In the novel Huck is associated to the Moses’ figure because both of them free slaves. Twain, who isn’t religious, wants to show that people can do good things without being religious.

10. In the description of the church Twain satirizes about what the church represent. The church should be the place were people freely go with happiness to learn about God. But the people go to the church only when they have to, while the only presence always in the church is the one of the hogs that sleep under the floor. Another contradiction about the religion is that the family who are considered the most religious as soon as out from the church start fight and kill each other.

11. The feud is typical in romantic literature. It is referred to the Shakespeare’s Rome and Juliet. In a feud two families kill members of each other in a cycle of murders based on a continuous revenge. The reason why they do that isn’t even known, they just continue it on and on because their ancestors did it, without knowing the reason. The feud id wrong and completely nonsensical.

12.  Huck and Jim find the raft more comfortable because there they have the freedom. On the raft they are apart from the corrupted society and they can be themselves freely, without any rules. The theme expressed is the conflict between the individuality, the freedom, against the society.

13. The clothes represent the conventions of the society. On the raft the can be naked because they are free from the society, they have free souls.

14. Because he doesn’t want to get in trouble. One thing he learnt is that it is useless to discuss with Duke and King because they won’t change and they are powerful people so if you contradict them you can only get in troubles. Plus he is a great supporter of the individual freedom so let them do and express their selves as they want. He demonstrates is growing up, he is becoming more mature.

15. Huck because doesn’t say all the truth about what he knows about the Duke and the King.

16. The feud in Romeo and Juliet is and element that contributes to a very romantic atmosphere. Twain take fun of both the feud, the Romeo and Juliet’s and the Duke and King’s because in the book he take fun on the romanticism in general that is too far from his extreme realism.

17. The king is the pirate, e bad criminal. He wants to redeem himself but also he says that he hasn’t change. To achieve is goal he speculates on the good people, who use to see goodness in everyone. Twain satirize right this, that good and respectable person trust this criminal and help him while they shouldn’t. You can consider everyone as good because people are mean.

18. Twain shows King and Duke as bad person, he makes them the opposite of how they should be. This probably reflects Twain’s society view, where the leaders are corrupted and consequently the society.

Don't Know Much About History: study questions

1) Discuss the significance of Thomas Jefferson's quote: "A little rebellion now and then is a good thing...God forbid that we should ever be twenty year without such a rebellion...The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

In this quote of Thomas Jefferson we can find a sort of irony because Thomas Jefferson is an important member of the government but says that’s acceptable if people go against the government. The adds that freedom is important but that people will always have to fight to keep it.

2) Why did Shay's Rebellion happen?

Shay’s Rebellion happened consequently the crisis pos-War. This was at most an economical crisis caused by inflation and the increasing of the taxes. The most of the times, farmers couldn’t pay those taxes so they lost their lends and gained a lot of debts. Another factor that leaded to the Rebellion was the fact that once back from the War the soldiers didn’t receive anything off all what had been promised them. All this causes made the spread of general discontent that exploded in the Rebellion.

3) The constitution is "a political creation, hammered together in a series of artfully negotiated compromises. Discuss these compromises.

The compromises are about the representation and the slavery. About the representation it was established that the number of representatives for each state would have been equal for each state in the upper house, the Senate, and proportional in the lower house, the House of Representatives. About the slavery it was established that they could vote but that their vote would be counted as 3/5.

4) What was the Virginia Plan?

The Virginia Plan said that there should be two chambers, an executive and a judiciary, both of them elected by legislature.

5) "No person held in service" was a euphemism for what?

This was an euphemism for slaves.

6) List the basic Powers and Checks of the three branches of the government.

·       Executive: President of United States - directing the government, commanding the armed forces, and vetoing laws; the Executive can checking the Legislative by voting laws

·       Legislative: the Congress – approving laws, originating bills and approving treaties; the Legislative can check the Executive by the veto.

·       Judicial: all the judges headed by the Supreme Court – judge people basing on Constitution principle; the Judicial can govern the other two power because can judge them, but is under the Constitution made by the other two powers.

7) Who wrote the Federalist Papers and why did they write them?
The federalist Paper was written by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay. In it thy defended the new Constitution, explaining it.

8) Briefly outline the first ten amendments.

1.     Freedom of religion, peace, speech and press

2.     Right to form a militia and bear arms in a sovereign state

3.     Military protection

4.     Protection of Privacy

5.     Right to do process

6.     Discusses trial by jury and the rights of the accused, the confrontation clause, and right to a speedy and public trial and right to competent counsel.

7.     Civil trail by jury

8.     Prohibition excessive cruelty in punishments

9.     Protection of all the right that are not talked about in the constitution

10.   Discussion about the power of the state and of the common people

9) Who could wrote in the first election (what parts of the population)?

Only white, adult males who had lands.

10) How did Washington D.C. come be located on the banks of the Potomac?
The decision was a compromise made in a secret dinner between Jefferson Madison Hamilton.

11) What did Jay's Treaty do?

Jay’s Treaty was done with British to avoid to fight again against them.

12) What was the "Whiskey Rebellion" and how was it put down?

The Whiskey Rebellion was a rebellion in response of the increasing of the tax on whiskey, led by George Washington. It was put down because they had no people and it was pathetic.

13) Describe the election of 1800? How was it finally resolved?

The election was supposed to be between Jefferson and Adams, but that really was between Jefferson and Burr, who were in the same party. Hamilton convinced the House to vote to Jefferson.

14) Who was John Marshall?

He is a head judge and he made the Supreme Court how it is today.

15) Why did France sell its North America possessions (the Louisiana territory) to the U.S.?

Napoleon wanted to build a French emperor in Europe and U.S. but French didn’t have all the sources to keep their control in US while they fought against England in Europe. So they prefer to focus only on Europe and leave their lands in U.S.

16) What did Lewis and Clark do? Describe their journey?

They move from St. Luis to west with the achievement of expansion. Directions arrived to them from Jefferson. Their trip last three years.

17) How did Hamilton incur the wrath of Aaron Burr? Was he right in what he did? How did the ordeal end?

Hamilton used his political influence to avoid Burr to get the government of NY. He argued that Jefferson should win the election. In the end there was a duel between Hamilton and Burr and Hamilton died. He was right in supporting the part he considered best, but duel are not a civil way to solve conflicts, it’s just a waste of lives.

18) What was Jefferson's Embargo Act? Why was it unpopular and what was it suppose to do?
It was a law restricting American ships from engaging in foreign trade. It was unpopular because a lot of trade was done with Britain and other major powers, so it lowered the American economy and made it so a large part of their trade was shut down.

19) What did Tecumseh try and do?

He tried to unite the natives to fight against the whites.

20) Describe the Battle of Tippecanoe?
This battle was between American forces and Indian. Indian said to the Americans that they would fight if they didn’t have their lands back. The Americans wouldn’t ever give them back so started to fight. In the end American won but had a lot of casualties.

21) Most historians call the War of 1812 a draw. Why?

Because it doesn’t make a lot of sense, there wasn’t huge battles and in the end treaty everything was left how it was.

22) Describe the Battle of New Orleans.

The Battle of New Orleans was the final major battle in the war of 1812 where Americans, led by Andrew Jackson, defeated the British.

23) What did the Monroe Doctrine state?

The Monroe Doctrine stated that Americas were no longer open to European colonization and that America would be the only power in the west.

24) What was the Missouri Compromise?

The Missouri Compromise said that the northern states, except Missouri, wouldn’t have slavery, while the southern states, included Missouri, could.

25) How was the election of 1824 decided? Why was it called a "corrupt bargain"?

The election of 1824 was decided in the House of Representatives because there was no majority I the Electoral College.

26) List some of the labels attached to Andrew Jackson.
Slave owner, murderer, adulterer, orphan, frontiersman, horse racing man, Indian-fighter, war hero, land speculator.

27) Was Andrew Jackson an Indian hater? What did the natives call him? What "Indian Wars" did he fight in and what was the outcome? What was his native "policy" as President?

Andrew Jackson wasn’t an Indian hater but he wanted Indians lands. Indians called him “Long knife”. He fought Creek War where Americans won and removed from Creek an half of their lands. He fought against the Seminoles, which he also won, and Florida's land was sold cheap. He also fought in the war of 1812, which is now considered a draw. His 'policy' as president was to tell the Natives either assimilate, leave, or get killed.

28) How did Jackson come to symbolize the common people?

Because he was poor but with hard working became rich and powerful.

 

Huck Discussion Question: XII - XIV

1.     Huck considers borrowing and stealing the same thing because he says he would give what he takes back, if only he could, something rare. However just to solve this confusion between these two things, he says he won’t borrow anything more.

2.     Huck’s insistence on boarding the wrecked steamboat tells us that the character is looking for an adventure, the kind of deed described by Tom Sawyer in his stories.

3.     The name of the steamboat “The Walter Scott” is referred to the name of a Romantic Novel’s writer and in this situation is used as an ironic reference to the Romanticism: the boat that represent the movement sinks.

4.     Huck saves the murders because he thinks that one day he can be a murder too, and he think to the way he would like to be treated in that situation. This compassionate behavior of Huck towards the murders tells us that even though Huck wants to looks like an adventurous man, a robber and a murder without pity, he is a good and sensible boy.

5.     Huck is able to enlist the aid of the boatman acting with cunning. He notices that the boatman is very greedy so he tells the boatman that on the steamboat which is sinking there is the niece of a very wealthy man of the town.

6.     In this sentence Jim expresses that he has no more hope because or he will drown or, if he will be saved from the water, he will be sold as a slave.

7.     Huck doesn’t know a lot about dukes and kings. He probably starts their descriptions from real facts but then he adds a lot of exaggerated details. He says kings never work, only have fun time and that their power let them doing everything they want. Probably Huck adds this elements to make his stories more fascinating too.

8.     Jim doesn’t like King Salomon because he doesn’t approve his behavior. The king has a harem with a lot of wives and a lot of children and he has a big power. Jim consider the king wasteful especially after he knows the king wants to solve a debate about a baby by cutting it in a half. The king is compared with the owner of a plantation. These too have a lot of power and a lot of slaves working for them that have to respond to their orders without complaining.

Huck Discussion Questions: V – IX

1.     Pap doesn’t want Huck to receive and education and dislikes him because he is already able to read and write. What Pap says is the opposite of what a dad should say to his son, indeed Pap isn’t a good dad. The irony is the fact that Pap despises the education while he needs one too. He shouldn’t discourage Huck to study but use him as an example.

2.     The refusal of the court to grant custody of Huck to the Widow Douglas and Judge Thatcher, preferring Huck’s brute father, reflects a society based in injustice, where the owner of the power himself are not able to fulfill their offices.

3.     Huck prefers stays at the shanty because there he is free from the rules of the society. He hasn’t to behave politely and he hasn’t to care about cleaning, himself and the house. Practically when Pap isn’t there he can do everything he wants. This reflects the theme of the evasion. Huck doesn’t want to be part of the common society, he doesn’t want to be squared in a model, he wants to feel free and go looking for new adventures

4.     When Pap is drunk he shows very angry with the government. His anger is fueled at most when he listens that the government approved good measures toward slaves and black people; he looks very intolerant against blacks and slaves. The reason while Pap hates government so much is in Pap himself. He is a bad guy, who doesn’t follow the rules so it’s normal that he doesn’t like who made those rules.

5.     Huck’s escape and his consecutive meeting with Jim represent the theme of the Freedom. Once escaped form Pap, Huck is definitely free: free from the society, free from the rules. The first person he meets is Jim, another new-free-man. Jim himself escaped from his owner, the Widow. Now they can join together the beginning of their new free life.

6.     The ironic is that Huck believes that Tom is a brave boy, an expert adventurer, skillful in planning strategy, but in the reality Tom is not so capable. Tom is just a dreamer whose imagination make him create a lot of suggestive stories that appear really because they are full of details. But Tom creation aren’t more than fantasy story, they can’t be real. In the reality Tom isn’t able to do what he tells in his story. That’s why his help wouldn’t be useful to Huck, that on the opposite, is very practical.

7.     When Huck finds bread to eat he remember the Bible’s episode of the Last Dinner and links it to that. He thinks that God really can have helped him. So he restarts to think about religion and his behavior towards God.

8.     When Jim meets Huck he thinks he is a ghost and wants him to go away. This reflects the big superstition of the character who even consider dead a person alive!

9.     Running into Jim is like running into the freedom. Huck’s run is his rebirth because it defines the passage from the life in the society, under the rules, to a life completely free. The conflict in Huck’s mind is cause by the fact that Huck is helping Jim to escape. He is confused about that because on one side he wants to help the slave, but on the other he knows the slaves is ownership of the Widow Douglas, woman who Huck owes a lot to.

10. Huck could be called abolitionist because helping Jim, a slave, to escape, he goes against slavery and against the society, considering slavery is part of the society. So being consider an abolitionist isn’t a good thing.

11. Jim bases his prediction about the future on his past experience. In Jim’s prediction knowledge and superstition are mixed together and sometimes this let him to do previsions that come true.

12. In doing the trick to Jim, Huck wants just take fun of the man because he likes tricks. He doesn’t consider, strangely because generally he does, the superstitious meaning of his act. Jim, on the other side, who is very superstitious, says soon that that would have brought bad luck, indeed it is.

13. Huck’s trip to shore shows us different aspects of his personality. He looks smart and crafty, two new characteristic of the character that let him to build a good strategy, before for leaving home avoiding that the other people look for him, and then for asking information (he dresses up like a girl).

14. When Mrs. Loftus discusses the money that Tom had found, the common trait that emerges in the description is the exaggeration. The woman exaggerates the amount of money that Tom has found. This is very common in human speeches.

15. The satire is that the amount of the reward for a slave escaped, Jim in this case, is higher than the amount of the reward for a man who is accused to have done a murder, in this case Pap accused to have killed Huck.

Question about first 4 chapters of "The adventures of Huck Finn"

Discussion Questions Notice – IV

1.     The Widow Douglas is an old woman that took Huck with her like her son. She is “dismal regular and decent […] in all her ways”. She wanted Huck to be a polite person and to receive a good education. That’s why she care a lot about his behaves. She pretends Huck to be perfectly on time to dinner and accustom him to say some prays before eating. Plus she uses to teach the boy about Moses and the Bulrushers and she doesn’t want at all that Huck smokes.

In the beginning Huck is really interested in Moses stories but since he discovers that Moses is dead he loses all this curiosity about him: Huck doesn’t care about dead people, in his opinion this has no sense. This defines Huck like a person based on the practicality, a material practicality. Not being interesting about the past and the people that lived before is a bad deficit because it is possible to learn a lot from the past.

2.     The superstition is a characteristic of Huck. While he doesn’t have a good relation with God, he is very superstitious. First of all he believes in ghosts and thinks that they are souls of dead people that didn’t find the peace, so they go whispering in the night. But most of all he shows his superstition when once he was terribly mad of have killed a spider. Thinking that it was a sign of bad luck he tried different “rituals” to remove the negative influence: he stood up, turned around and crossed himself three times, then he used a piece of thread to tied a tuft of hair in a knot, believing that that kept witches away. So he believes in witches too. But in his opinion this wouldn’t help his condition because this last operation works only for people who lose horseshoe. Well summarizing Huck believes in ghosts and witches and thinks that killing a spider or losing a horseshoe is a signal of bad luck which needs a ritual to remove bad luck.

Another example of superstition is in chapter 2. Tom and Huck plays trick to Jim and he believes that the witches did it.

In other superstition can be found in the beginning of chapter 4 when Huck wants at all costs some salt to throw it backward and in then when Huck goes to Jim to listens the black man predicting his future in the bowl.

3.     After Huck knows about Heaven and Hell from Miss Watson, he whishes he will go to Hell because he wants a radical change and he doesn’t think that the Heaven is the right place were he can stay. Then he is happy knowing that probably Tom Sawyer will go to the Hell too because he want them together.

4.     Tom wants to play a trick Jim while Huck says that it is too risky because Jim can wake up. In the end Tom plays a trick to Jim by himself. The trick is pretty simple, he just gets Jim hat and hangs it on a branch over his head, while the man is sleeping in the ground. When Jim wake up and find his hat on the tree he think that the witches have done that. So telling that to the other people, he tells how the witches kidnapped him and carried him in the hell and how he survived. He described him like a sort of hero. This shows another time how the ignorance makes people believing in witches and supernatural phenomena. It is another element of superstition.

5.     With the expression “Jim was most ruined for a servant…” is expressed how Jim is silly. He thinks to be cool because the witches have kidnapped him and he has seen the witches, all superstitions and elements of ignorance.

6.     Tom leaves 5 cents on the table to pay the candles they took. Tom does this because doesn’t want to be a brute robber but a gentleman robber who respects and honor’s code and he rubbery only when he can get big treasures, not just candles like in this situation.

7.     Tom and Huck are two fluffy kids who love the adventure. They pretend to be robbers and create a secret society for robbing. They share the same boyishness. The main difference between the two guys is that Tom is very creative and full of fantasy. He set their believes on what he read in the books and imagines the reality like a fantastic story. Huck, on the opposite side is characterized by a material practicality. He doesn’t believe much in Tom stories and doesn’t believe in religion. He doesn’t think is important knowing about people form the past because they are “past”. Contrasting with this his tract is his superstition: he believes in ghost, witches and bud luck, but probably this is common for a child unaware of the life. Another tract that differentiates the two is that Tom tends always to be the boss, while Huck uses to follow Tom. Tom is more intrepid than Huck and he likes the risk.

8.     Tom thinks that is important that the gang is considered “highwaymen” because in this way their deeds will be more adventurous. Burglars just steal houses and cattle and things simple like that while they are going to robber stagecoaches and carriages on the road, kill people, and take their watches and money, everything with masks on and that is more exciting.

9.     Miss Watson tells to Huck to use to pray because praying he can have done everything he prays for. But Huck, trying and retrying, never obtains anything of what he asks in his prayers. He concludes that Miss Watson has lied him about the prayers so the religion doesn’t seems so useful to him.

10. Tom Sawyer calls Huck a “numskull” because Huck wants to face the magicians that transformed the Arabs and the elephants in a School picnic and this would be a very dangerous and imprudent action. In the reality there are no magicians and Tom makes the deed so dangerous only because wants to keep secret his lie.

11. Huck admits that Tom believed in what he said: the Arabs, the elephants, the magicians. But for Huck those seem unreal as unreal are all the things he has to study at the Sunday school, so all the things about religion and God. Here it is like the religion is compared to a lie, to a kids’ game.

12. Because, probably, he doesn’t want his father to get them or he doesn’t want seem well-off to his father now that he knows that his father is back.

Sentences

EVANESCENT: Beauty is evanescent, it's the mind to be important.

VENERATION: The veneration of gods was a common practise in Grece in the past.

Sentences

MAGNATE: Obama is an important magnate in US.

MALLEABLE: Nowadays having a malleable mind is a very important skill in work world.

Scarlet Letter 39

The meeting between Hester and Dimmesdale in chapters 16 and 17 happens in the depth of the forest. This place isn’t casual. This place evocates the ideas of secrecy and mystery. Indeed the topic of the conversation is in this way. They tell about a truth only they know and that no one else has to know. This is way the meeting happens in the wood, away from everyone, in a place apart of social and common uses. In the forest no one would judge them, plus their secret is keeping safer.

Scarlet Letter 38

"Once in my life I met the Black Man!" said her mother. "This scarlet letter is his mark!"

For the first time Hester lies about the symbol she has on her bosom. Before she has never felt this necessity. Everyone in the city knows her story and look at her with accusatorial eyes. But Pearl is so young and so naïve. She probably can’t understand the act of the mother, his consequences and especially how it conditioned her life itself. She could try a wrong meaning and teaching from the truth so her mother prefer hides it to her.

Scarlet Letter 37

In chapter 16 Pearl tells Hester about the Black Man and the mother is surprised from this interest of her daughter. This knowledge of Pearl means that despite the child is still pure, she is attracted by the evil world. She has contact with the Black Man and the witches’ world involuntarily. Her wrong origin make her like predestined to chose wrong ways of life. But Pearl is strong and with the care of her mother and the light of God she won’t astray.

Scarlet Letter 36

"Mother," said little Pearl, "the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom. Now, see! There it is, playing a good way off. Stand you here, and let me run and catch it. I am but a child. It will not flee from me, for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!"

The sunshine symbolizes the pure light of God. It is far from Hester Pryne because she is a sinner, she did a big mistake and she can’t enjoy completely God’s goodness. Opposite Pearl is only a child, she doesn’t know anything about the life, she has no fault, and she is pure so she can play with the sunshine.

As Hester, arrived under the light, tries to reach the sun with her hand, the sun goes away. It seems like if Pearl have absorbed it because despite she isn’t a common child, she still is under God’s goodness and God cares about her.

Scarlet Letter 35

When Hester, in chapter 15, asks Pearl if she knows the meaning of the symbol her mother brings on her bosom, the child for a while seems unaware of that.

"It is the great letter A. Thou hast taught me in the horn-book.”

But then a flash of cunning lights her eyes and she quickly linked the scarlet letter with the reason why the minister has his hand on the heart.

“It is for the same reason that the minister keeps his hand over his heart!"

Pearl isn’t more a naive child. Her precocity is making her asking and starting to understand. It doesn’t miss much that she will understand the truth about the A and her origin.

Scarlet Letter 34

“A letter - the letter A - but freshly green instead of scarlet. The child bent her chin upon her breast, and contemplated this device with strange interest, even as if the one only thing for which she had been sent into the world was to make out its hidden import.”

Pearl, enjoying playing with seaweeds, makes on her bosom the letter A, like her mother’s one. But the green A of Pearl is completely different from the scarlet A of Hester. Green is the color of the childhood, of the naivety while red is the color of the love, the passion love and of the fault. On the other hand Pearl, growing up, is getting more curious about the meaning of that symbol her mother has. She asks herself something before she has never thought to ask: what does the scarlet letter means?

Scarlet Letter 33

“Did the sun, which shone so brightly everywhere else, really fall upon him? Or was there, as it rather seemed, a circle of ominous shadow moving along with his deformity whichever way he turned himself? And whither was he now going?”

The light, symbol of God and of the heaven, so the well, can’t bright over Chillingworth. He is always in the dark because he is wicked. The evil leads his mind and like a shadow darkens his soul.

Scarlet Letter 32

In chapter 15 we can understand that the real mistake of Hester wasn’t the adultery, or better, the adultery was her sin but her real mistake was to marry a man without love him. In this Chillingworth is guilty too and he should be marked with the A because he had the Avarice to persuade Hester to merry him. She was young and naïve when she did this mistake, she didn’t know what really love him and the doctor caught her life marrying her.

Scarlet Letter 31

“Forth peeped at her, out of the pool, with dark, glistening curls around her head, and an elf-smile in her eyes, the image of a little maid whom Pearl, having no other playmate, invited to take her hand and run a race with her.”

Pearl isn’t a common child. She hasn’t a common look. She hasn’t a common behavior. Differently from the other child she hasn’t any friends. Her mother would love her to play with the other children, but Pearl has an origin too particular, she is considered the symbol of the sin so no one is her friend. She has to play alone with herself, with the projection of her image in the water.

Scarlet Letter 30

The love between Hester and Dimmesdale wasn’t limited to one night of passion. They are continuing love each other. We can see how Hester still loves Dimmesdale especially in chapter 14. To help the poor man she decides to face the evil Chillingworth. She promised the doctor not to tell anyone his identity but now she is ready to goes over that promise to save the minister from the bad influence of Chillingworth. This time Hester, who uses not to have a lot of force, puts all herself in this “deed”, just for love. And in the end she succeeds to face the doctor (and then she will succeed to alert the minister).

Scarlet Letter 29

“Little accustomed, in her long seclusion from society, to measure her ideas of right and wrong by any standard external to herself, Hester saw, or seemed to see, that there lay a responsibility upon her in reference to the clergyman, which she owned to no other, nor to the whole world besides.”

Hester is living a life completely isolated from all the society. She is like alone in her own world. That’s why she has her own rules. People labeled her like a wrong person and she will have this tag for all her life. No one care a lot about her behavior because she will be a sinner forever so Hester has to judge alone what is right and what is wrong.

Scarlet Letter 28

In the context of chapter 13 the red-passion A on the Hester bosom, the symbol of her sin change in meaning. It isn’t more the A of Adultery but people start to see it as the A of Able, the new characteristic of the poor woman that put all herself in the help of the other. After Hester admitted her fault she could redeem herself, differently Dimmesdale can’t because his is an inner sin so he is having an inner punishment that is destroying him.

Scarlet Letter 27

In chapter 13 is described Hester life for several years after she received the scarlet letter. By the time people started to pity this woman that never complain for her punishment and day-by-day live hard working and caring alone on her child. Plus Hester doesn’t limit her strengths to her own business: she helps poor people and takes care of ill people. It is for these reasons that she starts to be seen like a Saint.

Scarlet Letter 26

In the end of cheater 12 another character appears in on the scene: it’s Chillingworth. He promised to Hester that he would have discovered the truth, and he does it. He is like the sore in the situation made between the “family”. Hester hates him, Pearl hates him, and Dimmesdale hates him, but being the one with less temper, in the end choose to follow him and goes away.

Scarlet Letter 25

In chapter 12 there is one of the most important scene of the book: Dimmesdale, Pearl and Hester stand on the scaffold, hand in hand like an “electric chain”. The three elements of the sin are together on the place of the punishment. Any person sees them, but God that watch them, shows his mind in the A that appears in the sky.

Scarlet Letter 24

In chapter 12 we see the radically mutation of Dimmesdale. Since the beginning this man appear us like a Saint: he behaves good with everyone, he is pitiful and he helps people. In this chapter all his profile is changed because we discover he is the sinner that with Hester Pryne acted the sin. He isn’t a fair man, but he’s a guilty who decided not to tell the truth and that make his sin worse.  When Dimmesdale shout from the scaffold, he wanted to tell everyone his fault because he is becoming mad keeping the secret, he wanted to be free from that fault that plagues him. The fact that anyone notices him is probably a sign of the destiny: he has to live until the death with his fault on, that’s his punishment. Only Hester Pryne and Pearl, the other two symbols of the corruption, see Dimmesdale on the scaffold, and go up next to him.

Scarlet Letter 23

"Come away, mother! Come away, or yonder old black man will catch you! He hath got hold of the minister already. Come away, mother or he will catch you!  But he cannot catch little Pearl!"

Pearl with infantile naivety says a real truth: the doctor has captured the minister. This capture is not practical but moral. Chillingworth succeeded to be one of the closest people to Dimmesdale and in this way he can influence his mind very easy making the priest torment himself. Plus Pearl shows a kind of craftiness that isn’t common to the children of her age.

Scarlet Letter 22

“Had a man seen old Roger Chillingworth, at that moment of his ecstasy, he would have had no need to ask how Satan comports himself when a precious human soul is lost to heaven, and won into his kingdom.”

The sin didn’t affect only Hester, Dimmesdale and Pearl. Roger Chillingworth undergoes it too. For all his life, when he was Mister Pryne, he was a good man, “calm in temperament, kindly, though not of warm affections, but ever, and in all his relations with the world, a pure and upright man”. Now that he is Roger Chillingworth and all his life is based on the revenge, he is compared to Satan, and his evil makes him worse than the sinners themselves.