Dialectic Journal II

Benedict Cumberbatch was on Top Gear (BBC America) tonight at 8:00 p.m. 

Apparently, when he jumped off the building, Mycroft was waiting in a helicopter dressed as a woman with an inflatable skirt...

Chapter 16

p. 85 "Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on,-s'pose you'd a done right and give Jim up; would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I, I'd feel bad-I'd feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, what's the use you learning to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? I was stuck. I couldn't answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn't bother no more about it, but after this always do whichever come handiest at the time.

Comments and Questions

Huckleberry Finn and Jim are floating down the river on a raft when slave-hunters show up, wanting to search the boat. Huck then decides to lie about Jim's identity to avoid Jim's capture, conning forty dollars out of the men. This incident is remarkable in that Huck has already expressed his low opinion of liars, and still breaks his own self-imposed moral code to protect Jim. The interesting thing is that there was a cultural aversion to lying at the time, but Huck has been isolated from society for a good part of his life, not long enough for those values to be properly instilled in him. Huck's dislike of lies stems solely from his own sense of right and wrong and prior experience. His time with the widow probably cemented those values. However, out on the river, Jim and Huck are cut off from the rest of society for the most part, and Huck is starting to let go of those values. In any Southern town, his actions-lying, interacting with a slave as almost-equals, aiding a runaway slave, stealing-would be condemned. But on the river, Huck is able to act based upon his own ideals and values. Now that Huck has taken the first step towards deceit, how far will he continue to go to further his own agenda?

Chapter 18

p. 107 "We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft."

Comments and Questions

After escaping the Shakespearean feud between the Grangerford and Shepardson families, Huck reunites with Jim and their raft to set off again down the river. Huck is still reeling from the aftermath of the families' fatal gunfight, details of which are never fully explained. His initial admiration of the wealthy Grangerfords has been replaced by disgust at their actions. While being "civilized", the families continue to engage in increasingly irrational and violent interactions with one another. The wording of Huck’s words reveals a continuing pattern of understatement in Huck's narrative. He uses what would be seen as euphemisms, but are really indicators of Huck's acceptance of the brutality of reality. As he downplayed his own abuse at the hands of his father, he downplays the horror of the feud, refusing to examine his own emotional state and sticking with the facts. Perhaps this is how Huck deals with the events he is narrating; rather than trying to garner sympathy for himself, he allows the reader to draw their own conclusions. I kind of want to give Huck a hug right now. Poor kid.

Chapter 19

p. 115 "...I never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way; then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble. If they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as it would keep the peace in the family; and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I didn't tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way."

Comments and Questions

Huck's just a poor, abused child. He knows that these con men have the power to turn Jim in, and Huck is willing to let go of his own pride and keep quiet for Jim's sake. In addition, his father probably beat that concept into him-Mr. Finn seemed to feed off of Huck's submission to him. Huck sees this group as his family, with Jim as a father-figure. And due to Huck's memories of his own home life and abusive father, he seems to seek to avoid conflict, a view probably aided by his observance of the Grangerford-Sheparson feud. He doesn't have the ability to talk himself out of sticky situations, and so avoids them at any cost.

The passage is arranged like a long run-on sentence, creating a feeling of haste, or panic. Huck sounds defensive, as if he feels like he needs to justify his actions to other people. He seems to accept judgment, and bares his soul to the reader; Huck seems to be waiting for someone to tell him he's wrong. Obviously, his father's oppression of his ideas and opinions has resulted in some deep-seated insecurity that manifests itself in Huck's constant experimentation: what he can get away with and what he can't. I'll look for more concrete evidence on this subject.

Chapter 22

p. 134 "'The pitifulest thing out there is a mob;  that's what an army  is-a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with the courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it, is beneath pitifulness...If any real lynching's going to be done, it will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come they'll bring their masks, and fetch a man along. Now leave-and take your half-a-man with you.'"

Comments and Questions

After murdering a old drunk in broad daylight in front of the drunk's young daughter, Colonel Sherburn returns to his house, followed by a lynch mob made up of the enraged townspeople. Upon their arrival, Sherburn comes out of his house to berate the crowd for their herd mentality in joining the rudderless lynch mob. He criticizes their apparent cowardice in attempting to intimidate him with sheer numbers in a lengthy and eloquent discourse. The irony in being lectured about courage by a man who just killed a defenseless old man just for insulting him is completely lost on the crowd, which dissipates quickly, in shame. As with the Grangerford-Shepardson feud and the cons of the king and duke, this incidence is yet another demonstration of the cruelty of "civilization". Although the townspeople are dressed in nice clothing and are literate and cultured, their animalistic desire for conflict manifests itself in other ways, much like the gossip and backstabbing seen in modern society's social relations. Sherburn's oratorical skill is contrasted with his unprecedented murder of the drunk. Will there be any more incidents to cement this idea?

Chapter 23

p. 142 "He was thinking about his wife and children, away up yonder, and he was low and homesick; because he hadn't ever been away from home before in his life; and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their'n. It doesn't seem natural, but I reckon it's so. He was often moaning and mourning that way, nights, when he judged I was asleep..."

Comments and Questions

At night, when there is nothing else to distract him, Jim remembers his family, who he left being to avoid being sold off to another owner. He only does this when he thinks Huck and the con men are asleep, and Huck is astounded to find that Jim is capable of the emotions Huck himself can feel. The Southern perception of slaves was that the slaves were lower in social status than even animals, almost objects. This event serves to highlight that although Huck is more open-minded than other "white folks", it is still hard to move past the perception of slaves that infiltrated every aspect of life in the American South. Huck's thought that Jim being homesick wasn't quite natural also contributes to the idea that slaves were naturally inferior, unable to feel. However, Huck ultimately decides that he must have been mistaken before and applies this new knowledge to his interactions with Jim.

Huck uses the word "mourning" to describe Jim's lamentations, calling to mind death. The only family Huck ever really lost was his father, not having known his mother. However, Huck's father's disappearance before the novel's events begin did not seem to have much of a psychological effect on Huck, due to the history of abuse. Therefore, in his mind, Huck equates missing family members to mourning them, as he has had more experiences with death than homesickness, and is more familiar with the appearance of mourning. Grief is a purely human emotion, and the word "mourning" is used after Huck recognizes Jim's ability to feel emotion. Interesting.

Chapter 25

p. 150 "...I never see two men leak the way they done. And mind you, everybody was doing the same; and the place was that damp I never see anything like it...and so everybody broke down and went to sobbing right out loud-the poor girls, too; and every woman, nearly, went up to the girls, without saying a word, and kissed them, solemn, on the forehead, and then put their hand on their head, and looked up towards the sky, with the tears running down, and then busted out and ran sobbing and swabbing, and give the next woman a show. I never see anything so disgusting."

Comments and Questions

Huck does not understand this display at all. He's confused, and more than a little terrified of all these crying people, and is too overwhelmed to properly empathize. He has never encountered anything like this before, given his estrangement from society in general. He has not had the opportunity to grieve, as his mother, although never mentioned, is implied to not have had contact with her son. Huck respects grief; what he cannot stand is the display of the two con men. Their blatant manipulation of obviously grieving people is malicious and Huck is torn between his moral sense and his desire to keep Jim safe.

Huck replaces the word "sobbing" with "swabbing" upon its repeat-is he trying to indicate another dialect of English used by the townspeople? Is the alternate spelling being used for emphasis, or to indicate Huck drawing out the syllables of the word in spoken vernacular? Is Twain trying to indicate the tone and inflections of how Huck views the word? A long-suffering tone might be being used here, but I'm not sure. There is something fishy here. I shall get to the bottom of this!

Chapter 28

p. 169 "'Miss Mary Jane, you can't abear to see people in trouble, and I can't-most always. Tell me about it.' So she done it. And it was the niggers-I just expected it. She said the beautiful trip to England was most about spoiled for her; she didn't know how she was ever going to be happy there, knowing the mothers and the children warn't ever going to see each other no more..."

Comments and Questions:

It's kind of interesting how Huck gets Mary Jane to open up to him. He starts out with her name, to get her attention and create a sense of familiarity. Using a person's name while talking to them creates a feeling of mutual trust, and Huck is attempting to make Mary Jane more comfortable. He then notes her compassion before relating it to his own feelings, forming a common foundation. He then asks her to trust him with her own thoughts. The choice that he offers her allows Mary Jane some control over the situation. When people feel out of control, they tend to control what they can. Huck appears to trust Mary Jane, allowing her to feel comfortable enough to tell him what is bothering her, even though Huck was already pretty sure he knew. Huck's summary of her response is narrated in a way to draw the reader's compassion for Mary Jane despite her previously demonstrated gullibility. She also details the unfairness of her own relative happiness in contrast to the separation of mother and children, a subject that resonates with any audience. The crude phrasing calls to mind the innocence of children, adding to the thought of innocent children being forever separated from their mother. Mark Twain is a genius.

Chapter 29

p. 181 "Well, then they sailed in on the general investigation, and there we had it, up and down, hour in, hour out, and nobody never said a word about supper, nor ever seemed to think about it-and so they kept it up, and kept it up: and it was the worst mixed-up thing you ever see. They made the king tell his yarn, and they made the old gentleman tell his'n; and anybody but a lot of prejudiced chuckleheads would a seen that the old gentleman was spinning truth and t'other lies."

Comments and Questions

Huck has never experienced the suspense of a public inquisition, and the wait and supper beforehand probably felt like a rigged game. In informal conflicts, responses and judgements come faster due to the lack of pressure. However, the wait and preparation before the questioning period is designed to increase pressure on the victim, in an attempt to make the victim crack. All Huck sees is a bunch of people, pretending to have a civil dinner, and he doesn't understand why they don't just start interrogating him, instead of letting him stew in his own thoughts. The interrogation afterwards is just as tense, with Huck waiting while his side's mastermind spins a crazy lie that he knows everyone will dismiss as false. The sentence is another run-on, with the tone becoming more frantic with every clause. There is a pattern of seeing Huck's fear and panic manifested in run-on sentences. I think it's safe to say that it is officially a pattern. I wonder if there are any more sentence patterns that I missed.