Huck Finn’s Selection of Satires
It doesn’t surprise me at all that the book we’re reading, Huck Finn is full of satires, and is constantly poking fun and pointing out the flaws of the time period of when it was written. A few vague examples are Ms Loftus, being a complete definition of a “sivilized” human being and yet she drops the n bomb constantly as if it weren’t a big deal. Just another word in the every day vocabulary like “as” or “him”. Yet another is Tom Sawyer himself, when he plays robbers and wants to make a gang of burglars who aso double as murderers and yet they still find themselves crashing Sunday School parties and waving around sticks. He tried to be a bad boy like Huck, but he’s still a good innocent little kid just trying to look tough.
A few more specific examples are ones I found as follows:
“And he said if a man owned a beehive, and that man died, the bees must be told about it before sun-up next morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die. Jim says bees wouldn’t sting idiots; but I didn’t believe that, because I had tried that lts of times myself, and they wouldn’t sting me.” -p.45
I found this quite humorous, but confusing at first. I think Jim was really trying to get a joke out by stumping Huck. This is just one of those instances where the southerners somehow have this knowledge of the weirdest things (African Americans, usually, since they were expected to know all about witchcraft and the sort). Personally, I had never heard such an absurd statement in my life, but it was really funny to hear it (once I finally got it). Another (maybe a better) example was one I discovered on p. 46:
“Yes. You know that one-laigged nigger dat b’longs to old Misto Bradish? Well, he set up…” -Ch 8
Very very interesting that an African American slave like Jim would address one of his own as a person being labeled by the n-bomb. I would figure that at least they had respect for one another, but it seems as though some or many of them have been convinced they are truly inferior to their white owners and deserve such a derogatory term to call them. Especially if it’s based solely on physical features.
