Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Discussion Questions: XII -XIV

1.) Huck believes borrowing is not stealing as long a you intend to pay it back at some point.

2.) It tells us Huck wants to be like Tom.

3.)Walter Scott is a famous romantic writer. Naming the boat The Walter Scott and the boat is sinking, is showing romantic writing sinking and dying. Also, Huck goes on the boat for adventure, and he finds it but relife adventure is much different than romantic adventure.

4.) Huck tried to save the murders because he feels bad for the murders because he wouldn't want to be in a situation like that, and he didn't want to become a murder himself.

5.) He is playing on the boatman's greed and pays attention to when the boatman mentions a rich persons name and with saying the person who is stranded on the boat is related to the rich man, he is able to enlist the boatman's help.

6.)He felt this way because he figured anyway he was goning to get of the Walter Scott he would either drown or be caught and returned as a slave.

7.)He is not very accurate about the dukes and kings because he thinks of them in a romantic way.

8.) Jim doesn't know the actual story or understand the story about Solomon, he just sees a man who lives in the middle of bickering wives, has a lot of kids, and wants to split one in half. Jim doesn't like it and thinks Solomon is not very wise. Slaves can't be taught how to argue is what Huck states even though Jim was arguing and made good points. Jim and Huck both don't fully understand so they can't agree.

Friday, November 6, 2009

chapter 11

Summary: Huck talks to Judith Loftus about Huck's murder.

Persona #1 Sarah- Mary- Williams
There is a reason that Pap might have killed Huck, but there is no reason for Jim (enforces rascim) $300 dollar reward for Jim, $200 for Pap: this is all satire and reinforces of a corrupt society)
Pap was the one in the house floating down the river (freedom)
In all of Huck stories his parents are dead or sick (plays on the gulibility of people, wanting to help someone young)
Themes: Freedom, Racism, Gullibility of people
Symbol: the rewards for Jim and Pap, Huck as a girl, raft
Motifs: personas or the invention of personas
Ends episode 3
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Thursday, November 5, 2009

Huck Discussion Questions: V-XI

1.) Pap is telling Huck he cannot go to school anymore and if he, Pap, sees Huck around school, He'll beat him. This is a situational Irony because you would expect a dad to be happy that his son is going to school and getting and education that he himself never got, but Pap dpesn't like it one bit.

2.) Society believes the kin should not be seperated, even if the father was not suitable. This is one of the flaws of society during this time period.

3.) Huck prefers to stay at the Shanty because he likes to live wild and not dress nice. He likes to have more freedom and living in the shanty, in away he does, because he doesn't have to go to school or have any type of lessons, and for the most part he looks after himself. He also has to stay because his Pa locks him in, like something he owns, which goes along woth the theme of dehuminization.

4.) Mark Twain is saying that just because a person is white, doesn't mean they are in anyway better than a black person.
~Pa and everyone else believe they are better then that black man because they are white, even thought they have done nothing in there life to better themselves like the black man in the story had done.

5.) The escape- Freedom, finding Jim- Coming of age, and the conflict between the individual and society.

6.) Tom thinks in a romantic way and wants adventure, and while Huck like adventure as well, at that time, all he wanted to do was escape. So if Tom had been there, he might have over done the scene making it unconvincing.

7.) This bread was sent out to find a dead body because it was a superstition people believed in. The funny thing is, is that the bread actually found Huck. Once the bread found Huck he decided that praying must work for some people becasue the widow probably prayed for the bread to find Huck, and it did.

8.)At first, Jim is frightened of Huck because he thinks that Huck is a ghost, but once Huck explains what happened to him, Jim is okay and glad to see him.

9.) It is a physical and spiritual rebrith: Spiritual because Huck is now free and starting a new life on the river; Physical rebirth for to Jim: Jim thought Huck was dead, and now he is back.

10.) Jim is a person, but to Huck, he is property. It shows that Huck views Jim as someone's property still. which is also Huck resulting conflict in his mind, to Huck, Jim is property and running away is like stealing, but he promised Jim he would not tell.

11.) Much of what Jim says will happen, does come true. When he predicted bad luck will happen, the rattlesnake bite him. When he said it would rain, it did. This characteristic of Jim also goes along witht eh motif of superstition.

12.) After Huck kills a rattlesnake, he hides it in Jim's bed to scare him. Yes I think it is typical of Huck's character, he is a boy, got bored and didn't think anything bad would come of it. In the end, he learned that when you kill a snake, its matecomes and wraps around its dead mate.

13.) He is very witty and can make up a story on the spot, he also doesn't know how to act like a girl. Cares about the safety of Jim.

14.)The common human trait that emerges it our problem with over exagaration about things, Judith said Huck and Tom found 20 thousand dollars but really it was only 12 thousand dollars.

15.) Jim's reward is $300 while Pa's is only $200, They believe Jim was the one who killed Huck only because he happened to leave the night of the murder. He had no reason and they really only believed it was Jim instead of Pa because he was a runaway black slave. Pa on the other hand had a reason to kill Huck and that ishe would be able to get the money quicker.

Tricks on Jim

Tom hanging Jims hat above him while he is sleeping
Huck puts a dead snake in Jims bed to scare him
Huck tries to make Jim think he dreamed Him and Huck getting seperated.

Note on chapter 9/10

Earlier chapter- Pa is reborn, chapter 3/4

Episode 3- Jackson Island

Chap 9- Find a Cave and move all of their stuff up to it. Find a house float down the river and on the inside, there is a dead man (Theme of Death) (Fits the theme of superstition in the way of explaining things. Chicken/birds, rains). Fits the theme of freedom because the island itself is on the Mississippi.
Important- Dead man, that fact the the river is over flowing, Foreshadow of something, Dead man is a symbol of death and rebirth, Dead man- Pa?

Chap 10- Bad luck handing a snakeskin and something bad with happen, then Huck kills a snake, Plays the second trick on Jim be putting the snake in Jims bed to scare him. The snakes mate comes and bites Jim,- Huck is a lot younger than Jim, and it is a little disrespectful- Snakeskin and the Snake are symbols, Old Hank Bunker( backs up superstition, Satire- Drinking/ what drinking can do to you). End, Huck went over to the village as a girl (First real persona). Mark Twain makes fun of Alchol a lot in this book.
See Jim as an Adult in his reaction to get rid of the pain
Important-

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Chapters 7 and 8

Chapter 7
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Theme: Coming of age, the start of Huck's Journey

Symbol: The woods are a symbol of peace a satuary. Huck always goes here to get away. The river

Motif: Coming of Age, it is the start of Huck's Journey down the river. Small one- superstition, June is always lucky for Huck.

Summary: Huck is waken by his father and is told to go outside to check the lines for fish. When he goes out, we sees a canoe floating down the river, pulls it to shore and hides it. Later that day, around 3 p.m. Pa goes to town to sell some logs that Huck and Him found in the river. While Pa is gone, Huck finishes sawing through and makes it look like the cabin was broken into and Huck was killed. Huck loads his canoe up with food and blankets and waits for the middle of the night to leave. When he wakes up to here a skiff coming down the river and realizes it's Pa, he immedeitlay leaves, going to Jackson Island. that night, he makes it to Jackson Island.
End of episode two

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Chapter 8

Themes:Dehumanization; Superstition Vs. Religion

Symbols: Woods: safe place

Motifs:Dehumanization, Superstition Vs Religion

Summary: After everyone looks for Huck and don't find him, Huck is living on Jackson Island safetly. Until he finds a fresh campfire and starts to worry. After moving around but not finding a secure location to live he decides to go back to Jackson Island and see who is there. That night he finds the campfire and when the man laying by it wakes up, Huck realizes it's Jim. Know who it is and know that Jim wont rat him out he says hi. Him and Jim eat breakfast and talk about what happened. Jim tells Huck how and why he escaped and Huck tells Jim what really happened. Next they start talking about superstition and ends with Jim talking about how he is rich.

Notes for Quiz

Romanticism- Works of literature that deal with the imagination, romantic adventures, spiritual connection w/ nature. Ex. The Last of the Mohigans; Stories about the round table; Robin Hood; Sir Walter Scott; Poe. Romanticism represents ideals and ideas, not reality.

Realism- Works of literature that depicts life and people as they really appear (all characters have flaws because all people have flaws).
Themes: corruption, racism

Satire: Work of literature that uses irony and hyperbole to attack and mock some aspect of society as a way to promote change.

Antihero: a protagonist that doesn't fit the traditional description of a hero. Ex. Huckleberry Finn.

Picarsque Novel: Usually a satirical novel which depicts in realistic detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who survives by his or her wits in a corrupt society.

Bildungsroman: A novel whose principal subject is the moral, psychological and intellectual development of a youthful main character.

Episodic Plot: A structure that features distinct episodes or a series of stories linked together by the same character. Huck Finn can be broken up into 8 or 9 episodes.