Chapter 12

1) What was Manifest Destiny?
 Manifest Destiny is the idea that the US was meant to extend its borders from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. We should spread freedom by occupying the entire continent.
 
2) The Oregon Territory consisted of what area? Who claimed it?
Oregon, Washington, Idaho, parts of Montana and Wyoming, half of British Columbia. Four nations owned it: US, Great Britain, Spain, and Russia.
 
3) Who were the Mountain Men?
American adventurers who spent most of their time in the Rocky Mountains and helped with the fur trade. Some worked for specific companies while others sold their furs to the highest bidder. Some of them married Native women and adopted Native ways, creating a mixed race.
 
4) Why was the Oregon Trail important?
It was the only way to achieve Manifest Destiny. It was the trail to the American Dream. It allowed us to fulfill our 'duty from God' to go west, populate the country, and spread freedom.
 
5) Discuss the meaning behind the slogan "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight"?
It refers to the line of latitude that Democrats believed should be the nation's northern border in Oregon, which was a campaign slogan used during the 1844 election. The border was eventually settled at latitude 49.
 
6) James Polk made what promises to the American public during the election of 1844 (list four - you might need to look up on the internet).
He made four promises during his campaign: to acquire California from Mexico, to settle the Oregon dispute, to lower the tariff and create a sub-treasury, and to not run for a second term.
 
7) Discuss how Texas became independent.
In 1819 the US gave up claims to Texas with the Adams-Onis Treaty. Very few people lived in Texas. In 1830 the Mexican government stopped all immigration to Texas from the United States, and US Texans were very angry. Santa Anna, Mexican President, declared himself a dictator. The US Texans banded together with volunteers and they fought. And they liberated San Antonio. During the Alamo, American settlers and the Tejanos declared independence and started to write a Declaration and Constitution.
 
8) Discuss the battles of The Alamo and San Jacinto.
Santa Anna marched forth to take back San Antonio, and found the Texans barricaded inside The Alamo Mission. It was poor leadership and a few men against Santa Anna's army of several thousand. The Alamo defenders help Santa Anna's army away against 2 attacks. Later, Mexicans launched an all-out attack while the Texans defended nobly, but the Mexicans were just too numerous to be defeated. San Jacinto was between Houston and Santa Anna. Houston had about 900 in his army, while Santa Anna had about 1300. Houston's army killed about half of Santa Anna's army, and captured the rest including Santa Anna. A few days later, Santa Anna recognized the independence of Texas.
 
9) How long did it take the U.S. to annex Texas? Why?
It took the US nine years to annex Texas. Andrew Jackson, president at the time, refused to annex Texas. He did this because the addition of another slave state would upset the balance of free and slave states in Congress. Van Buren after him also didn't want to annex Texas. John Tyler, president after Harrison, finally supported Texas, but it didn't work. Only James K. Polk was finally able to get Texas annexed.
 
10) How did the Mexican-American War start? Why did it start? Was it a "Just War"?
Mexico had control of New Mexico as a condition of it's independence. American traders were welcomed into New Mexico. Americans began settling in New Mexico as it was a hot trade area, but they wanted it for themselves, and California as well. California and New Mexico, meanwhile, began being more and more populated by Mexican peoples. President Polk twice offered to buy California and New Mexico, but Mexico refused, prompting the US to take the territories by force. To begin the war, the US built a fort in disputed border land between Mexico and Texas. This forced Mexico to attack first, making Congress believe that war would be a just retaliation. We think it was technically a just war, because the Mexicans did attack first. However, we believe the spirit of the war was unjust, because we basically forced them to attack first so we would have a reason to declare war.
 
11) What was the American response to the war?
 Americans were divided over the war. Democrats generally supported it, while Whigs generally opposed it. Whigs believed that the war was aggressive and unjust, disgraceful and cruel, and demanded to know exact reasons and the beginning of the war. Anti-war feeling grew over time, particularly in the north. This was because they believed that the South would spread slavery into any new states.
 
12) List the major battles of the war.
The battle at Santa Fe was major, because it was the capital of Mexico. Even though there wasn't technically a battle, it still counts. The other major battles were the Bear Flag Revolt, battle of Monterey, battle of San Gabriel, battle of San Pasqual (the only Mexican victory), battle of El Brazito, battle of Sacramento, battle of Monterrey, battle of Buena Vista, battle of Cerro Gordo, and the battle of Mexico City.
 
13) What was the cost of the war? 
The war cost America 1,721 men to battle, more than 11,00 men to disease, and almost $100 million. We then paid Mexico an additional $25 million during treaty discussions.
 
14) Why was the California Gold Rush important? 
Californian cities, and cities on the way, benefitted from the economic boom. California's population grew greatly, and developed an amazing economy due to boom towns. The gold rush also more than doubled the world's supply of gold, a very valuable commodity at the time. The effect on California's economy lasted a long time after the gold rush ended. The population grew, requiring better government. It urged California to apply for statehood, which it gained about a year later.
 
15) Answer the following questions on page 380 - #6 - #10, #13-#15.

• 6. They agreed about the northern latitude of Oregon, for ownership purposes. It ended up being on latitude 49.
• 7. He was afraid to disrupt the balance of slave and free states.
• 8. It gave them a direct line to the Pacific Ocean. There were still British people settled in the territories above California.
• 9. The US wanted New Mexico and California, and Mexico refused to sell. The other reason was that the US set up Mexico to attack them (by building a fort) so they could justify a war.
• 10. People found gold and they would use it. They also had a monopoly on the sales because they were the only merchants there.
• 13. It expanded the US west, all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
• 14. They probably thought the US was just greedy and wanted all the land they could get because they were selfish. They wanted to keep their own land in North America.
• 15. The ones between the US and Britain had a favorable outcome for everyone because they came to an agreement. Whereas the ones with the US and Mexico led to war because they couldn't agree.
  

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.