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.