Huckleberry Finn: Searching For What's Natural And Right/Black History Month W-O

--NOTICE—Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banned; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR
Per G.G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCE

I must say, I’m relieved that Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a work of fiction or else I’d have to take those words seriously and then where would I, your humble book reviewer, be? Readers want motive, plots and morals, do they not? Constarned if they don’t expect them in a novel and so I shall make my suggestions forthwith as to what could be construed as a motive, a plot and a moral. Just, if you’d please, be aware that I’m not no how makin’ this novel into somethin’ it ain’t, but am leavin’ it as purty as the narrator Huck Finn has done left it.

Seeings how this here book has been unjustly banned from public schools in the past, you may question my use of ‘purty.’ I do say that, though, despite the author’s callin’ what you’d call an African-American or black today a ‘nigger’ as they was called back in the time of the book, about the year 1830 or 40. Twain, a pen name for Samuel Clemens born in Florida, Missouri, published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in 1876 and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1883 for the express purpose of entertaining boys and girls, yet also to remind adults of ‘how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they engaged in,’ as the author posits in the preface. Finn ‘is drawn from life’ and Twain recalls that such strange superstitions imbedded in the story were part of children’s and slaves’ lives back then in the Midwest.

You can, I figger, find in that a motive. Okay then, with that serious business out of the way, I’ll give you a taste of what you’ll enjoy for around 322 pages.

Huckleberry Finn takes off from where Tom Sawyer left off, with Huck six thousand dollars rich because they found the money some robbers left in a cave, and his Aunt Polly is humorously trying to ‘sivilise’ him by dressing him in new clothes and teaching him about the Bible and how to read and write. It’s not to his likin’, nor is Tom Sawyer’s ‘band of robbers,’ but things become worse for him when his drunk pap shows up and wants his money and to take care of him like he used to.

Now Huck’s livin’ in the woods and being abused by his pap until one day Huck plans his escape to look like he was murdered. He leaves on a raft on the Mississippi when the commotion dies down, discovers the runaway slave, Jim, and off they go together to seek the north where Jim will become free.

One time Huck has the chance to turn in Jim as an escaped ‘nigger,’ and he makes as if he will, but the loving words of trusting, good Jim echo in his head and he cannot go through with it. Maybe that means he’ll go to hell for being bad, but he would rather chance it than betray Jim. Throughout his narrative Huck wrestles with his bewildering love-hate relationship with Jim and love wins as it must for both lads are fellows with simple, good hearts who wish to be freespirits seeing the world on a raft.

They not only contend with the risk of Jim being discovered, but with contrary weather, a couple of murderers on a sinking boat, adventures on land that get them almost killed, Jim being sold by a couple of rapscallions that supposedly were friends and Huck trying to free him under another one of his many guises with the help of an unlikely friend from his past.

I guess you could call that the plot if you be so inclined. If you’re curious how it goes with Huck and Jim, I reckon reading the book would be far more entertaining!

This here is part of a typical conversation between Huck and Jim to show you just how entertained you will be. They’ve been discussing royalty because Huck’s been reading to Jim books on kings, dukes, earls and such, and the conversation turns from whether King Solomon was wise to Louis Sixteenth ‘that got his head cut off long ago,’ but his son the dolphin (dauphin!) may have escaped to America. When Jim notes that the boy must’ve been lonely with no kings around, Huck tells him he might have got on the police or taught people how to speak French. Well, Jim don’t understand why a Frenchman would speak differently than Americans, so Huck tries reasoning with him.

“Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?”

“No, a cat don’t.”

“Well, does a cow?”

“No, a cow don’t, nuther.”

“Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat”

“No, dey don’t.”

“It’s natural and right for them to talk different from each other, ain’t it?”

“’Course.”

“And ain’t it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different from us?”

“Why, mos’ sholy it is.”

“Well then, why ain’t it natural and right for a Frenchman to talk differently from us? You answer me that.”

“Is a cat a man, Huck?”

“No.”

“Well, den, dey ain’t no sense in a cat talkin’ like a man. Is a cow a man?—er is a cow a cat?”

“No, she ain’t either of them.”

“Well, den, she ain’t got any business to talk like either one or the yuther of ‘em. Is a Frenchman a man?”

“Yes.”

“Well, den! Dad blame it, why doan’ he talk like a man? You answer me dat!”

I see it warn’t no use wasting words—you can’t argue with a n*gger. So I quit.

pp. 96

Now if that silly bit offends your sensibilities and there’s nothing the least bit amusing about it to you, then you’d better be off reading another book, I declare. As you see Jim speaks a little differently, as does Huck, but they’re Americans speaking English and I daresay we can understand them as well as a Frenchman speaking English, no?

I don’t want to leave the impression that the only characters are Huck and Jim, of course, for there is Tom Sawyer, Huck’s pap, Aunt Sally, Aunt Polly, the king, the duke and a host of other supporting characters along for the fun. They surely will bedazzle you in their uniqueness as much as the growing friendship between a white and black slave boy and the meandering beauty of the Mississippi as their life line and the book’s lifeblood.

There’s also sensational description and loads of detail to set you right there in Huck’s mind and his never boring adventures. Maybe Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn just to entertain kids and remind adults of when they were kids, but could be there’s a deeper intention behind it. Could be he was putting the thought in our heads that these ‘niggers’ deserve a better treatment than what they had been getting. Freedom, that is, to be as respected, loved and treated as white people. With Huck you may be surprised that they have feelings and needs just like us, that they have dreams of raising their families unfettered, of wealth and to be understood.

Maybe not.

This book with all of its silliness, thrills and boyish pranks I reckon accomplishes what you feasibly might call a moral. I can’t say I was surprised like ol’ Huck was about Jim, but was pleased to get to know both of the boys and laughed and was thrilled just as Twain hoped. 121 years later and Huck and Jim have never left the hearts of fortunate readers of this narrative, new ones every generation ‘til reading goes out of fashion.

I pray it never does. Huckleberry Finn, effortlessly it seems, captures a world of long ago and how it looked different, yet how human nature was the same in adults as now in all its ugliness and beauty. Makes me wish we could stay playful, hopeful children in search of what’s as natural and right as the livelong day.

Make it your wish, too. Huck and Jim await your pleasure.

This has been my second entry into brendan2’s Black History Month write-off. Supposedly today is the deadline, but our host oddly ignored Leap Year. Please see http://www.epinions.com/user-brendan2 for more entries.