Huckleberry Finn Blog #5 - Chapters 31-43

Okay, so now you can watch the video if you'd like :)

Social Responsibility:

     In the rest of our story we see the last glimmers of social responsibility portrayed in Huckleberry Finn. In chapter 31, I was happily surprised to see that Huck had finally made up his mind! He broke away from the thought of slavery being good for Jim and has gone off to save him from his captors! I cheered for Huck when he said, "All right then, I’ll go to hell! ... It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming." (Twain, 242). This showed enormous progress in social responsibility for Huck. Although he was going against all society had taught him, he saw through it all to the man he knew to be Jim. The responsibility of protecting a good, innocent man dominated the need to keep with society's rules.
     In chapter 32, we finally reach the Phelps' place and meet Sally who thinks it is "lucky" that only a nigger died when Huck makes up his story of being Tom delayed by a boat accident. It's really incredible and almost ludicrous of how unimportant blacks are to the white folks in the story. In the next chapter Tom comes back into the story and is more than willing to help Huck free Jim. Huck is surprised by this. When you think about it, does that make Tom the better of the two?At the end of the chapter however we do again come to see Huck show the better side of himself. When the duke and the dauphin go by tarred and feathered followed by a mob Huck admits that he, "...couldn't ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world", (Twain, 259). Huck was truly appalled by what had happened to them but then he goes on to say, " it don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't got no sense", (Twain, 260). Is he right?
    In the next few chapters, Huck makes Tom seem a great, respectable guy, yet here he is trying to free a slave (oh, the horror!). He even goes on to make Huck give money to the slaves for stealing a watermelon. It's quite odd the way Tom sees his responsibility in society compared to other people. He doesn't seem to view slaves as everyone else. He could steal all the things in the world, but from a slave he finds it wrong. Even Huck finds it odd. In all honesty Tom is kinda crazy to me, but I find him the better man of the two of them even though I like Huck for his overall ideas once he breaks from society.
    After many (not super important) chapters go by, we finally reach Jim, Huck, and Tom's escape! The escape is drawn out and dramatic and poor, sweet Tom gets out of it with a bullet in his leg. Huck recognizes Jim as "white inside" because he says they should get a doctor to check the wound and if one of them were in Tom's position he would've said the same. I assume being white inside would mean being rational and moral? Not really sure, but if that is what consists of being white then I think Jim might be whiter than the two of them.
    In chapter 41, Huck goes to get a doctor, leaving Jim and Tom on the raft. The next morning he runs into Silas and what do you know? He gets taken back to the Phelps place! The thing that bothered me most was that Huck doesn't escape again to find Tom! The story says he stays because he feels bad for Sally and all, but this is his best friend who got shot in the leg!! What?!
    In chapter 42 I believe we reach the almost end to our story. Tom gets taken back to the Phelps' with the doctor and Jim. Tom is nursed back to health and lo' and behold! He tells us that Jim has been free for 2 months now because old Miss Watson has died and left Jim free in her will. I'm sorry, but I wanted to just hit Tom. All the trouble he put Jim and Huck through!! SO terrible. His Aunt Polly returns and yells at the boys for their misadventures as well she should! These boys, smh.
    In the end, we see the white folks treat Jim like a great person, no longer a slave. (Tom even gives Jim money!) It's a fantastic thing and we also find out that Huck's Pap has died. For both Jim and Huck, they have finally obtained their freedom and all that comes with it. Except for Huck's small problem of Sally trying to adopt and sivilize him which he says he "cant stand it,' as he's, 'been there before,"(Twain, 324). So, has Huck evolved as a character in the ways of social responsibility since the beginning of the book? I think he has. He has finally decided what he wants (which is to stay out of society) and now knows that black folk are not bad and slavery comes at a price.
    What do you guys think? Has he evolved in society? Or is he still the same?

Huckleberry Finn Blog #4 - Social Responsibility (Chapters 23-30)

Instead of my usual extensive blogs I'm hoping to try something a little different. 
~Might want to stop at 2:26 in the video if you don't want to hear the end to the story.~

So, on to Social Responsibility!!

    In these chapters social responsibility is portrayed in a few ways. In chapter 23, the duke and dauphin continue to swindle the good townspeople of their money and Huck says nothing. He clearly knows they aren't royalty and he understands them to be con-artists when Jim says, "...dese kings o'ourn is regular rapscallions; dat's jist what dey is; dey's regular rapscallions" (Twain, 179), though he knew long before what they were. Yet, he does not speak up and even convinces Jim that this is the way kings usually act. Even in the next two chapters when the two rapscallions go on to do another con job by disguising themselves as relatives of a dead man come to collect money, Huck does not say a word. The only way we know he finds these schemes horrible and repulsive is when he tells the reader of his emotions and thoughts toward these actions. In the end of chapter 24 he says, "It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race" (Twain, 189).
    In chapters 26 and 27, we see the better side of Huck resurface when he steals the $6,000 in gold from the duke and dauphin. Even by his own accident, he ends up keeping the money from everyone and it seems that the problem is solved. After the family sells all its estate and slaves, Huck is comforted that the slaves will be reunited after the con men are exposed, yet he goes on to blame the missing money on them. It goes to show that the slaves are so below Huck that he uses them as his scapegoat instead of any of the other members of the Wilks family.
      Then finally, FINALLY, Huck tells the truth. Granted, by accident, but still. It's a hard thing, too when he finally tells the truth. "I reckon a body that ups and tells the truth when he is in a tight place, is  taking considerable many resks, though I ain't had no experience, and can't say for certain...it's so kind of strange and unregular," (Twain, 213). Obviously Huck doesn't tell truths often. He tells Miss Mary Jane the truth and tells her to wait to give him time to leave because someone else's fate is on the line, too - Jim. Nice to know he's thinking of Jim.
    In the next chapters the real brothers come back and in the excitement of finding the real frauds of the set of brothers, Huck escapes once they reopen the coffin and find the $6,000. Even though we are happy to see him escape, I was a little upset that Huck didn't just expose the duke and dauphin. I think that really would've cleared a lot of issues. So, when he goes back to the raft and leaves with Jim he is ecstatic thinking they got away free. Sadly, the duke and dauphin find them again. The duke and dauphin have a fight on who hid the money and even admit that they had both though to hide it for themselves. Honestly, I think the only innocent person in all of this is Jim.