Adventures Of Huck Finn Examination Essay Research — страница 2

  • Просмотров 302
  • Скачиваний 12
  • Размер файла 16
    Кб

The mantel clock was admired by Huck not only for its beauty, but because the Grangerfords properly valued beauty and "wouldn?t took any money for her"(1337). Huck admired the Grangerfords? principles, and the stake they placed in good manners, delicious food, and attractive possessions. But Huck realizes in Chapter 18 that whereas the Grangerfords may value a hand-painted clock more than money, they put little value on human life. Buck Grangerford provides the third view of the Grangerford?s world. He is the same age as Huck; he has grown up in a world of feuding, family picnics, and Sunday sermon that are appreciated but rarely followed. Buck, from when he meets Huck until he is brutally murdered, never questions the ways of his family. For the rest of the chapter,

Buck provides a foil for Huck, showing the more mature Huck questioning and judging the world around him. In fact it seems Buck does not have the imagination to conceive of a different world. He is amazed Huck has never heard of a feud, and surprised by Huck?s desire to hear the history and the rationale behind it. In Buck Grangerford?s rambling answers we hear Mark Twain?s view of a southern feuding family, and after Buck finishes his answer, we watch Huck?s reaction to the true nature of the Grangerfords. Buck details Twain?s opinion that a feud is not started or continued by thought. The reasons for the feud have been forgotten, and the Grangerfords do not hate, but in fact respect, their sworn enemies. They live their lives by tradition, and the fact that the feud is a

tradition justifies its needless, pointless violence. From the dignified Colonel with "a few buck-shot in him"(1340) to Buck, who is eager for the glory to be gained from shooting a Shepherdson in the back, the Grangerfords unquestioningly believe in de-valuing human life because it is a civilized tradition. It is interesting that the only compliment Huck gives to a Grangerford after Buck shot at Harney Shepherdson was to Miss Sophia. He admits that the young woman who denied part in any family feud is "powerful pretty"(1340). But the rosy sheen that had spurred Huck to use the word ?beautiful? six times previously in description of the Grangerfords has evaporated. He attends church with the family and notices all the Grangerfords keep their guns close by.

Huck thinks it "was pretty ornery preaching"(1340), but the feuding patriarchy praises the good values listed by the Preacher. The hypocritical mixture of guns and sermons, holy talk and bloodthirstiness make it "one of the roughest Sundays [Huck] had run across yet"(1341). He now questions the motives of everyone in the household, including Miss Sophia as she sends him to the church on an errand. By this point the cynical, sarcastic twain and the disillusioned Huck are of one mind. Huck walks among a group of hogs that have sought the coolness of the church and notes "most folks don’t go to church only when they’ve got to; but a hog is different"(1341). The narration of Huck’s final day with the Grangerfords is prefaced by: "I don’t

want to talk much about the next day"(1343). For Huck’s easy-going fluid dialogue to become stilted and censored, the reader knows the young boy has been hurt. A senseless fatal feud is not the only tragedy depicted through the events of that day, also shown is the heartbreak of a young boy who loses every vestige of the hopeful trust he put in a father, brothers and sisters. Huck is shocked to hear the fatherless, brotherless Buck complain he hadn’t managed to kill his sister’s lover on an earlier occasion. And then from his perch in the tree, Huck hears Buck’s murderers "singing out, ‘Kill them, kill them!’ It made [Huck] so sick [he] most fell out of the tree"(1344). He wishes he "hadn’t come ashore that night, to see such things"(1134).

The end of chapter nineteen, when Huck returns to the raft and Jim, almost exactly mirrors the end of chapter eighteen. Both chapters conclude with Huck enjoying a good meal with good company in a cool, comfortable place. First it is with the Grangerfords in the cool, high-ceilinged area in the middle of their double house. "Nothing could be better"(115), Huck thought. But only a few pages later the raft and Jim provide the same comforts. Nothing had ever sounded so good to him as Jim?s voice, and Huck felt "mighty free and easy and comfortable on [the] raft"(128). . Huck happily slides away from the bloody scene with the unorthodox father figure of a runaway slave. Huck has realized he does not need a traditional family to make him feel safe and happy. He