English 3318 students:
At some time before the end of this week (midnight on Saturday, September 10th), please publish a comment of at least two well-developed paragraphs about how Huck guides readers to question the kind of entertainment found in Romantic adventure novels that glorify violence, which Tom Sawyer introduces to Huck and the other boys in Chapters I-III of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (119-29).
After you publish your comment, please reply in one well-developed paragraph to at least one of the other students' comments.
Be sure to compose your comment and reply in a Word document or in an email, so that if you have any problems publishing your comment and reply, you can keep trying until it works. If it will not work after several tries, please email your comment and reply to me: linda.kornasky@angelo.edu. I will be glad to publish them on your behalf.
Thank you,
Dr. Kornasky
Previous to this week, I had already read through and somewhat analyzed Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in high school. With this being said, the language, glorified violence, and the characters did not take me by much surprise, therefore, I needed to dig deeper in order to comprehend the movement and development within the first three chapters. Although the bad behavior from the young boys built up through the first two chapters, the real violence, and in today’s society, discouraged adolescent thinking and rebellion did not reach its peak in the first few chapters until chapter three. As said in the prompt, as a reader of this story for the second time, I was still to some degree surprised with how and where Twain decided to start these chapters. For example, a line from the opening scene states, “Now the way that the book winds up. . .” (Twain 140). I found this interesting due to the fact that the first scene completely summarizes what the entire book is about. All of that to say, this opening chapter most definitely has the potential to make the reader question why this type of literature was found entertaining to read in that time period.
ReplyDeleteTo provide a specific example of the character Huck guiding readers to question why Twain’s writing was found interesting and entertaining enough to read, is a line from chapter two stating, “Oh, certainly. It’s best. Some authorities think different, but mostly it’s considered best to kill them till they’re ransomed,” (Twain 145). This quote, when paired with the quote from earlier in the second chapter with children stating, “‘. . .they was going to rule me out, because they said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it wouldn’t be fair and square for the other,” supports the prompts claim (144). These quotes support the claim that in the time period that this book was written, for whatever purpose, people found this violence and disobedience in adolescents entertaining to read about. Now, of course, in today’s society, this book is banned all across the United States due to how Huck and the other boys speak vulgarly, act violently, rebellious, and disrespectfully throughout the entire novel, which is how Huck guides the reader to question the time period’s form of entertainment through literature.
Abbie, this was a great interpretation of the prompt. The beginning of the book also took me aback as I was reading; this is my first time reading the book, so why would the author give away the ending right then? Twain's writing was abnormal from other works and uses language that people can relate to; it seems like seeing this book as a form of entertainment would come naturally. It's as if you're watching a TV show as the chapters continue.
DeleteAbbie, I loved your comment. I thought that it was very interesting that Twain gave the ending away in the beginning of the story. I agree with you that the book is very vulgar and violent, which does leave us wondering about the entertainment through literature from back in the day.
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ReplyDeleteAdventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck guides the reader to question the kind of entertainment found in Romantic novels from the very beginning of chapter 1; Huck talks to the reader as if he was recapping last week’s episode of a beloved TV show for the audience. He starts by saying, “Now the way the book winds up, is this:” (Twain, C-140). He then continues by giving us a summary of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and how it was hard for Huck to adjust to civilized life after what happened in that book. The way he writes this is when the questions can start to be asked; he’s writing in the same style of how people talked at that time; therefore, the entertainment that this novel was suggesting was actually made for those who could read it. This is similar to how some of Samuel Coleridge’s works were done.
ReplyDeleteHuck continues to guide the reader to a specific type of entertainment when he begins talking about the meeting and actions following the meeting happening in chapters 2 and 3. In chapter 2, we get the idea that this band of robbers Tom Sawyer is trying to create is actually made up of a bunch of kids who just want to cause a ruckus. They talk about the contents of the contract and how there will be killing and ransoming that will occur or the kids themselves will be offed for not adhering to the blood-bound contract. “…and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn’t eat and he mustn’t sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was a sign of the band,” (Twain, C-144). Back then, violence like this was found entertaining; many Romantic era writers wrote more graphic content than this, so those who read this book saw it as entertaining when people our age would, more often than not, find this type of graphic violence disturbing. Another point the reader might question the type of entertainment is when Ben Rogers pushes the topic of business in the gang. Keep in mind, that the boys in this band are young teenagers; Ben starts to ask about the business of the gang and does question the killing his fellow teenager friend has in mind, but is easily convinced to kill after Tom says that’s how it’s done in the books he’s read. “Well I don’t know. But per’aps if we keep them till they’re ransomed, it means that we keep them till they’re dead. Now, that’s something like. That’ll answer,” (Twain, C-146).
I think you did great including the history of Romantic writing and why people at a different age may be intrigued by the story. I think including Ben Rodgers and how he pushed for the task and how although Tom created the plan, he only told them about the things he read and what he thought they be.
DeleteI found your take on the fact that the character, Ben Rogers, tries to be very serious and stern when trying to ask about the business side about things, yet is very easily convinced to murder people just because it happens that way in books. It is actually quite funny, and I guess that type of kiddish humor could have been one of the factors of why the people from this time period found this literature so entertaining. I also really admired your observation of and relating this type of diction and methods of writing to the Romantic Era, very insightful.
DeleteI really loved that you referred to another romantic writer, I found your entire entry very interesting. I understand the irony surrounding Ben and how his actions are funny, but childish at the same time. It's interesting to read a novel such as Huckleberry Finn and think about the fact that this novel entertained so many people at the time. Nobody understood the deeper meaning behind it, they just enjoyed it and it's supposed simplicity.
DeleteIn Mark Twains, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the main character Huck guides readers to question the kind of entertainment found in Romantic adventure novels that glorifies violence by explaining to the readers the way he is living and using himself as an example. In the beginning of the first chapter, we are getting a reintroduction by Huck in reference to a previous story he was in, explaining how he is not a new person and that this story would be told from his point of view. Huck informs the readers of his home situation as well as his friend who is full of trouble Tom Sawyer who is the main reason for having the readers question the type of entertainment found in Romantic adventure novels.
ReplyDeleteAfter the beginning chapter we find out about Tom’s plan in creating his band with the boys and huck, which he told them they would be stealing and robbing people. Although the violent acts seem like they were thought out, even the boys had questioned Tom asking Tom, “if he got it out of his own head”. He said, “some of it, but the rest was out of pirate books, and robber books, and every gang that was high-toned had it” (Twain 125). Here they were referring to the oath, but from there we could see that this is typically how violence glorified novels are portrayed. As we know Romantic adventure novels include a lot of gruesome details that tie to violence, but in this story, Huck explains, “We hadn’t robbed nobody, we hadn’t killed any people, but only just pretended” (Twain 127). As we know Romantic adventure novels include a lot of gruesome details that tie to violence and following through with what they have planned, so having Huck explain that there was no violence involved in this realism story and that pretending to portray those books in real life he just was not interesting to him, helps guides the readers to question the entertainment used in those novels.
Looking at your answer- which I thought was a good point- I wonder if Tom is a foil for the average reader, the type that would be interested in these romanticized depictions of violence. Huck is your reasonable figure, which is why as you said he's not interested in make believe, but Tom is. Are we more like Tom or are we more like Huck? Which is the character we want to be like, and what does that say about us?
DeleteGoing off of Daisy's idea, I'd have to say that Tom is most certainly the reader's opposite. Even in his original story, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom is everything that the average reader is not but, given the time period, many children were: wild and relatively unbound by rules. This sort of entertainment was common in such times and Huck is, as Daisy said, the "reasonable" figure. In the case of our time, however, who is more likely to exist in this day and age? Is Tom Sawyer, rambunctious rascal that he is, still a common type of child to exist or is Huck, calm and oftentimes bored by pretending more common?
DeleteIn Mark Twain’s novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” the main character, commonly referred to as Huck, unveils the glorified violence often found in Romantic adventure novels. The first chapter begins with a reintroduction of Huck who had previously been introduced in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” Huck comes off as a kid who simply likes to cause trouble, with the help of other young kids, he and Tom come across a large sum of money. Huck explains how he is trying to integrate himself back into society after his adventures with Tom, as well as the struggles he faces at home. Huck essentially gives away the entire plot of Tom Sawyer by saying, “Now the way that the book winds up is this:” I personally view this as an homage to television shows and how they often recap what happened the week before (Twain 140). Huck and the other young boys were introduced to a violent lifestyle at a very young age by Tom, the writing style indicates that Huck is still a kid, making references to possibly some of his favorite TV shows, whilst being involved in some very mature and/or violent situations. Huck is essentially representing a young boy with an adult job.
ReplyDeleteChapters two and three go into more detail regarding the violence surrounding romanticism. Huck and the other boys meet with Tom to create, “Tom Sawyer’s Gang,” the boys go through an oath bound by the boy's blood. Tom explains that, “if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family…” (Twain 144). This entire chapter definitely can shock a reader, it’s difficult to wrap one’s head around the fact that these young boys could be involved with such a serious ordeal. I believe Twain / Huck use this entire situation as an example to show how easily children are robbed of their innocence. It’s concerning to think that this is just one example out of many in the ways the young boys were robbed of their childhood. Although at the time when this novel was written, not many people thought critically about what Mark Twain was trying to convey through writing something such as Huckleberry Finn, they saw the novel as entertainment. In today’s world however, this novel has an entirely different impact on readers, the type that I believe Twain meant to convey. What people at the time found as entertainment, we as modern readers now find as a very concerning novel about a group of troubled teens who deserved their innocence to be preserved.
In the chapters, Tom Sawyer introduces his friends to the violence often romanticized in adventure novels- highway men and robbers. He does this by organizing Huckleberry Finn and the rest of the group into a gang, creating rules, codes of secrecy, and having them chase after make believe targets. The boys’ pursuits culminate into the terrorizing of a Sunday School’s outing. Throughout their planning and the aftermath of their ‘attack,’ Mark Twain introduces a voice of reason through the characters Ben Rogers and Huckleberry Finn.
ReplyDeleteTom first brings the boys together during the nighttime, showing them a perfect hideaway, and creating a series of rules and activities the gang must follow and do. Ben Rogers asks what their activities are to be, and Tom answers, “Nothing only robbery and murder” (Twain 145). Ben then questions who they are to rob, and what- whereupon Tom says that “stealing... ain’t robbery, it’s burglary” (Twain 145). In Tom’s reasoning, they aren’t burglars but rather highwaymen who in a particular stylistic fashion rob. Of course, in any reasonable interpretation, wearing a mask and choosing to hold up travelers for their money doesn’t change the fact that highwaymen are thieves, but they are a literary trope whose violence is romanticized. The dark, swaggering, and mysterious figure of midnight rides is a familiar figure to most. Twain is allowing his readers to see the holes in this character, by pointing out that highwaymen aren’t much different from a common thief, despite the often romanticization of their violent ways.
In another subtle way, when Huckleberry questions Tom about why the Arabic caravan full of riches turned out to be a Sunday school picnic, Tom answers that it was simply a disguise and uses the book Don Quixote as a reference. Don Quixote is about a Spanish noble who, delusional by fantasy and chivalric stories, sets out as a knight and often confuses real life things like windmills for imaginary foes- like dragons. Twain is making a comparison between the Don Quixote’s protagonist, and Tom. Both figures are chasing imaginary tropes that are often idealized and romanticized in literature, and by using such a known character of ridicule, Twain is guiding the audience to begin to distrust Tom and his romanticization of this particular type of violence.
Hi Daisy, I agree with you, you make excellent points as to the glorification of violence by Sawyer and the use of literary tropes within Romantic novels, that are meant to entertain but are in essence faulty once you begin to analyze and question it as Huck and Ben try to do. Furthermore, agree in that Tom and Don Quixote have much in common; Don Quixote is also a prolific reader of Romantic adventures chasing imaginary tropes (Dulcinea and the windmills).
DeleteThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck guides the readers to question the kind of entertainment found in Romantic adventure novels that glorify violence by bringing awareness to the readers via introducing Tom Sawyer as a prolific reader of Romantic adventures and therefore is always devising some convoluted scheme to undertake, which he conceived from various Romantic adventure novels.
ReplyDeleteTom Sawyer’s Gang is an example of Tom Sawyer emulating the different scenarios of glorified violence from different Romantic adventure novels. Sawyer explains his intentions and rules to the members of the gang as well as their main objective, which was to be robbers. When the members oppose his strategies, he calls them ignorant for not knowing about the plots to the many Romantic adventures he has read. For example, Tom Sawyer’s Gang wants to mimic books about pirates that romanticize violence such as committing crimes not only against themselves, by talking about hurting their families and killing members of the gang that dare to tell their secrets, but also against the community, Sawyer says, “We are highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks on and kill the people and take their watches and money” (p 125). They also want to ransom people, although they do not know what the word means, Sawyer says it must be done because is in the books and, for the same reason, they cannot kill the ransomed people by clubbing them because as Sawyer says, “Because it ain’t in the books so—That’s why…” (p 126). He trusts the writers know better. Moreover, Sawyer’s romantic notions about women are also derived from books. He’s perception on women is that they will eventually fall in love with their captor if the captor is polite. Sawyer also makes references to the books, Don Quixote, and Aladdin, to explain how they were enchanted to something different (a primer-class’s Sunday-school picnic) than his reality (Spanish merchants and rich Arabs). Hence, Sawyer’s inspiration for his adventures were instigated by reading Romantic adventures that glorify violence.
Your explanation of the Romantic Adventure that glorifies the violence from Tom Sawyer introducing the boys to form ideas he takes from books is intriguing. I found it very insightful and thought your explanation was perfect. Tom Sawyer's ideas do come from the books in which he reads and he believes that these are the way that things must be to be a "gang of robbers", and if they are not done as the books tell them to be then they are not accurate.
DeleteHuck guides us through the background of his life and how he came to live with a widow. He guides us to question the entertainment we find in Romantic Adventure novels by explaining how after being with the widow and no longer being able to stand all the things that she was having him do, he dresses back in his old clothes and runs away. However, he states, “Tom Sawyer, he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable.” (The Norton Anthology; American Literature, p.141, para. 1). This leads the reader to believe that Tom Sawyer was a type of role model and friend to Huck. Huck did what Tom asked him to do in hopes of being able to join Tom’s gang. Even though the idea of starting a gang of robbers seems unethical, the reader can learn to glorify the violence in which Tom Sawyer Introduces Huck and the other boys too. Especially, after Tom gets Huck to return to the widow’s home.
ReplyDeleteLater in the story, Huck sneaks out of the home of the widow to join Tom in a cave with a group of boys who begin discussing the ideas and rules regarding the gang of robbers. The boys discussed the process of how they would kill and rob, as well as the discipline that would take place if any of the boys were to tell the secrets of the gang. The boys took an oath that was written by Tom who said that most of the oath came from his “own head”. However, much of the oath came from “pirate books, and robber books, and every gang that was high-toned had it.” (The Norton Anthology, American Literature, p.145, para. 1). In looking at the relationship between Huck, the boys, and Tom Sawyer, although they are condoning violence, we can find Romance in the Adventure, by the relationship in which the boys all share with each other.
In Mark Twains, "Adventure of Huckleberry Finn", the main character, Huck, gets readers to question the type of entertainment found in Romance novels that also depict violence. Huck gets other neighborhood kids to form some sort of a violent gang and act they are robbers. Sawyer says "We are highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks on and kill the people and take their watches and money" (p 125). The kids in the gang realize how serious Huck is when he says “…and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn’t eat and he mustn’t sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was a sign of the band,” (Twain, C-144). The kids come to terms that they must complete the violent and horrific task or the kids themselves will be reprimanded for not adhering to their blood-bound contract. I believe that this symbolizes how some children are "robbed" of their adolescence. Back with stories like this were written, I think the audience liked violent stories like this and depicted them as entertaining, as people today see more of these types of scenarios in these romantic adventures as disturbing.
ReplyDeleteYes, I like how you mention how those from the present have a different outlook on the material of a past time. Keeping this in mind while we examine the views of Realism writers, such as Mark Twain, over Romanticism. It is displayed in these chapters that violence in literature during the Realism period isn’t viewed the same as it once was, and really, it’s being looked down on in this case.
DeleteFrom what I remember when I read Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn during one of my English classes I took a year or two ago as it was one of the many novels given to us to read over. The readers follow the story of a young boy named Huck and how hard his life was. At the beginning we found out that Tom is starting a gang, and Huck giving us his perspective on the story. “But Tom Sawyer, he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.” (141) We the readers know that Tom is a caring person and reasonable when it comes to Huck. Tom mainly wants to look out for Huck that is all and from it talks about the violence that goes on. You can see how the book is a romantic adventure novel just by how Tom is with Huck.
ReplyDeleteAn example is of the violence is when the boys are together talking about their business of being in a gang. “What’s the line of business of this Gang?” “Nothing only robbery and murder,” Tom said. (145) The boys discuss the rules of the gang and how they will the rules just like in the pirate books, robber books and well known gangs. Even though the boys talk about violence and killing others we the readers can see that the relationship amongst the boys is one that they all share. This was the kind of entertainment that readers in the past found good to enjoy reading whereas now modern day readers would find this type of reading concerning as it involves boys talking about murder and robbery.
Paul, I like what you had to say about Tom and Huck's friendship. I also remember hearing about his book a lot, and reading some of it for school. The story is definitely violent, with all the little boys talking about murder. But I like what you said about the boys all sharing this, because it shows that they are just being silly boys, just wanting to talk big and pretend to do tough stuff. And you're right, it does cause concern though, because people do not like to hear innocent children talking like this, because we want to keep them safe for as long as we can.
DeleteHuck guides readers to question the entertainment by how he talks so blatantly. There seems to be no emotion, just matter of fact and no changing it. He is also a young boy, so that also causes concern that a child is thinking like this. Him and his friends are sneaking around, drawing blood, taking oaths, and offering their families to be murdered all so flppantly.
ReplyDeleteHuck’s friend, Tom Sawyer, tells many tales of which Huck is skeptical about. He will go along with it, like taking the oath to be a part of Tom’s group, but when nothing happens like Tom said it would, then Huck loses interest. Huck begins to question Tom on his stories, beginning to doubt him. Then he goes out again, rubbing a lamp to see if it’s possibly true, and finds out once again it is not.
I agree with your view of the realism Huck displays in many aspects of the book. Huck is very straight forward with what he says and how he sees things. I like how you view Huck as skeptical of Tom Sawyer's wild tales. Huck didn't believe his stories or pirates and the Spanish merchants, even when he tried to make it real with genies in rings and lamps.
DeleteMark Twain guides the readers to question the elements of romantic entertainment through Huck Finn’s disbelief in Widow Douglas’s and Tom Sawyer's rationale.
ReplyDeleteThe character Widow Douglas represents the older generation not just by her age but by the way she is excessively emotional and sentimental. When Huck Finn decides to leave the house, and eventually when he comes back, she cries once she sees him and calls him a “poor lost lamb”. Her sentimentality shows when she reads to Finn about Moses and his story of being adopted just as Huck Finn was by her. Finn regards her in a way that leads the reader to believe that Widow Douglas is suffocating in presence. And it could be assumed that Huck Finn represents the upcoming generation of realism.
The character, Tom Sawyer, begins as a seemingly very violent character with his dedication to the blood oath he made the other boys promise. Twain provides plenty of gory details of the blood oath by having the narrator, Huckleberry Finn list the murder, torture, burning and other factors, associated in the pact. This oath is said, by Tom Sawyer, to come straight from pirate and robber books, as well as his arguments and claims. Tom Sawyer defends his very vague plans by referring to the books and says, “Don’t you reckon that the people that made the books knows what’s the correct thing to do?”. It's a question to the boys in the book but really a question from Twain to his readers on the validity of past books of the romantic period. Later the audience finds out that the robbers have accomplished nothing but rambunctious juvenile behavior, and the critique of violence is still there because it is being planned by this illogical group. Additionally, Mark Twain pushes the readers to examine romantic literature qualities when Tom Sawyer is revealed to have no sense of reality. Eventually, Huck Finn asks Tom Sawyer where the Spaniards, elephants, and other things are that he claimed to be at their planned robbery. And according to Tom, it was the “enchantment”, that allowed him to see the previously listed items. Twain criticizes the romantic supernatural features by having Tom Sawyer, a childish and delusional character, speak on the topic as well.
Mark Twain argues the unlikelihood of supernatural beings, the often-absurd nature of violence, and melodramatic tendencies of romanticism.
For someone like myself who has never read the story, or even just a few paragraphs here and there, the fact that the entire outcome and summary of the rest of the story is revealed within the first two paragraph truly caught me by surprise. "Now the way that the book winds up is this," (Twain c-141). This sentence, along with the rest of chapter one, would be the start of the answer to how Huck guides the readers to question the kind of entertainment found in Romantic adventure novels, because most people now would question as to why anyone would enjoy reading something that blatantly tells you how it ends. Now tying this into the violence that the boys bring into the story, and build up throughout the first two chapters just to have it peak in chapter three, is also a good way to answer the question as well.
ReplyDeleteIn the period of time that this novel was written, compared to our current time now, the violence and chaos that the boys bring into the story seems to be very normalized and enjoyed by others. Throughout the novel there are some lines that show that readers back then genuinely found enjoyment when reading about children and adolescents being violent and acting out in vulgar ways, which is why they were added. "Oh certainly. It's best. Some authorities think different, but mostly it's considered best to kill them till they're ransomed," (Twain 145). When reading further into the story there are parts that go into some detail about the contracts and requirements of the boys that are important to joining and staying within the band. "They was going to rule me out, because they said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it wouldn't be fair and square for the others," (Twain 144) and also "...and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was a sign of the band," (Twain 144-45). It is mentioned that if any boy within the band were to step out of line from the contract such as telling their secrets or not completing a task, they were to be killed themselves. I believe that back then in this time period entertainment was not very limited to the types of entertainment and different genres that we have now, hence why most people that read something like this do find it disturbing in different ways.
Although no explicit violence is written in the first few chapters of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, graphic ideas like war and murder are idealized by people who hardly understand, nor can they truly comprehend without experience, such violence. Like in Editha by William Dean Howells, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, albeit not short like the example, both romanticizes and slightly criticizes this topic. In Editha, war is seen as an honorable situation to be in. However, in Huckleberry Finn, such violence is less honorable and more gratifying to be a part of simply for the fun of it. With the number of stories at the time showing violence to be exciting and even desirable, the children of Huckleberry Finn (and of the general time period in real life) were bound to find the concepts enticing to play around with.
ReplyDeleteTom Sawyer, having read multiple of these romantic novels, becomes the leader of the group of kids that are aptly named Tom Sawyer’s Gang. These kids get up to all sorts of shenanigans, although they’re hardly the shenanigans that were promised to them by Tom. Huck even finds himself wanting of more adventure than they were given because, in the end, a bunch of kids simply cannot aspire to achieve the life of crime that they have idolized due to Tom Sawyer’s idea of entertainment. This sort of behavior leads the reader to realize how these games can lead to a deterioration in judgement and can make a grave impression on a child’s future, especially with how the rest of the book turns out.
As we begin to read the beginning of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, Huck, the main character, tells us that this story is going to about him. The story is told to us as if Huck is having a conversation with us (the readers). He wants us to know that he joined a “gang” with his best pal Tom Sawyer and few other boys from the neighborhood. Tom becomes the leader of the gang and makes the boys pledge their lives with blood to the gang. This is the first act of violence we see in the book that the boys follow. Tom Sawyer says he got the idea from mostly “…out of pirate books, and robber books, and every gang that was high-toned had it.” Because of these books, Tom Sawyer believes that this act of violence and extreme exaggeration seems like normal “gang life”. The oath also entails the death of the gang members’ families if any gang member spills the secrets of the gang. It was funny to read the other boys argue about the consequence for Huck since he didn’t have a family. At first, being in the gang needed to happen because Huck didn’t want to be left out. Though, he started to catch on to the fiction that Tom made him believe was real.
ReplyDeleteSome time had passed after the gang was formed, and the things that Huck says about the gang shows that Huck knew nothing about the gang was real. I have a physical copy of the book, and this is what Huck says on page 25 “We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All the boys did. We hadn’t robbed nobody, we hadn’t killed any people, but only just pretended.” With this quote in mind, it seems like Huck is disappointed that none of things they signed an oath came to fruition. As a young adult reading this, it’s concerning that young boys want to be violent like that. Young kids are influenced by the things they read, and Tom certainly thought that being in a gang would be fun. Considering that romanticized adventure novels were only thing that kids could read during the late 1800s, it comes as no surprise that the “Tom Sawyer Gang” would be formed and filled with fantasy that Huck knew wasn’t real.
In the first three chapters of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the story is being portrayed in the eyes of Huck, who see things as they are in terms of what is actually happening. I haven’t read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but I did see an animated movie about it when I was younger. Tom envisions what is happening with magic and things he has seen in books, whereas Huck sees it for what it is. The first glimpse of this is in the second paragraph of the first chapter. From what I remember about the movie, Tom goes searching for a pirate’s buried treasure and makes an adventure of it. In comparison, Huck views it as money and even talks about earning interest on it. Huck’s view of things starts with him saying, “Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave.” (Twain 140). From the very beginning Huck has put their experience into real terms and carries on this way throughout the rest of the book.
ReplyDeleteWhere Huck guides readers to question the kind of entertainment found in Romantic adventure novels that glorify violence comes into play in chapter three of the book. Huck complains that they haven’t robbed or killed anyone yet and shows us his realistic look on things when he says, “We hadn’t robbed nobody, we hadn’t killed any people, but only just pretended.” (Twain 147). To me, that line “only just pretended” shows the reader that Huck knows the stuff about the gang and robbing and killing people is a hoax. To further this statement, Huck later says in the chapter, “So then I judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer’s lies.” (Twain 149). What brings this on is Tom trying to convince Huck that the Spanish merchants and Arabs that were supposedly in Cave Hollow were disguised as ordinary Sunday-school kids by magicians.