Sneha Arora
Mrs. Coates
English 10 Honors
31 October 2016
Anticipating the Forthcomings Superstition is an unreasonably gullible reverence for something that is thought to be supernatural and humanistically unreal. In Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, superstition is an important thread that appears throughout the course of the book. Originally, the two main protagonists of Twain’s novel, Huck, who is thirteen and the son of a white drunk, and Jim who is a black slave are both very deliberate characters. Yet, whenever they cross paths with anything superstitious, they are forced to face incongruity. The hold of superstition on the two characters shows that despite of their probable maturity, both Huck and Jim are still …show more content…
One of the major illustration of this is during chapter chapter four, when Huck discusses the superstition of spilling the over his left shoulder at the breakfast table. Huck tries to throw salt over his left should to avoid bad luck but is stopped by Miss Watson, “One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast. I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and crossed me off. She says, "Take your hands away, Huckleberry; what a mess you are always making!" The widow put in a good word for me, but that warn 't going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough. I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn 't one of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along low-spirited and on the watch-out” (Twain 15). The beliefs of superstitions that Huck has, rotates more around bad luck as opposed to good. He is determined to follow these beliefs as a provision against the bad happenings coming his way. Several times in the novel, Huck is seen attributing bad happenings on his luck, which is as he thinks bad. In contrast he thinks that the good things that befall come naturally to him or he …show more content…
“Miss Watson 's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here again, for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was, what he was going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor.”(Twain 17). This quote, taken from chapter four of this novel, is a great example of how childlike Jim and Huck are despite their apparent maturity throughout several adventures they go through together all along in the novel. This situation enhances how the readers perspectives change while accounting their foolishness regarding these superstitions versus otherwise when how sharp-witted and clever on some level both of them are, especially Huck. Jim is considerably a poor slave with much less intellect and knowledge. He is also seen to be very naive regarding important things and believes in anything very
Mrs. Coates
English 10 Honors
31 October 2016
Anticipating the Forthcomings Superstition is an unreasonably gullible reverence for something that is thought to be supernatural and humanistically unreal. In Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, superstition is an important thread that appears throughout the course of the book. Originally, the two main protagonists of Twain’s novel, Huck, who is thirteen and the son of a white drunk, and Jim who is a black slave are both very deliberate characters. Yet, whenever they cross paths with anything superstitious, they are forced to face incongruity. The hold of superstition on the two characters shows that despite of their probable maturity, both Huck and Jim are still …show more content…
One of the major illustration of this is during chapter chapter four, when Huck discusses the superstition of spilling the over his left shoulder at the breakfast table. Huck tries to throw salt over his left should to avoid bad luck but is stopped by Miss Watson, “One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast. I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and crossed me off. She says, "Take your hands away, Huckleberry; what a mess you are always making!" The widow put in a good word for me, but that warn 't going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough. I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn 't one of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along low-spirited and on the watch-out” (Twain 15). The beliefs of superstitions that Huck has, rotates more around bad luck as opposed to good. He is determined to follow these beliefs as a provision against the bad happenings coming his way. Several times in the novel, Huck is seen attributing bad happenings on his luck, which is as he thinks bad. In contrast he thinks that the good things that befall come naturally to him or he …show more content…
“Miss Watson 's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here again, for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was, what he was going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor.”(Twain 17). This quote, taken from chapter four of this novel, is a great example of how childlike Jim and Huck are despite their apparent maturity throughout several adventures they go through together all along in the novel. This situation enhances how the readers perspectives change while accounting their foolishness regarding these superstitions versus otherwise when how sharp-witted and clever on some level both of them are, especially Huck. Jim is considerably a poor slave with much less intellect and knowledge. He is also seen to be very naive regarding important things and believes in anything very