Huck S Superstistion In The No Essay, Research Paper

In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, there is a lot of superstition. Some examples of superstition in the novel are Huck killing a spider which is bad luck, the hair-ball used to tell fortunes, and the rattle-snake skin Huck touches that brings Huck and Jim good and bad luck. Superstition plays an important role in the novel Huck Finn.

In Chapter one Huck sees a spider crawling up his shoulder, so he flipped it off and it went into the flame of the candle. Before he could get it out, it was already shriveled up. Huck didn’t need anyone to tell him that it was a bad sign and would give him bad luck. Huck got scared and shook his clothes off, and turned in his tracks three times. He then tied a lock of his hair with a thread to keep the witches away. “You do that when you’ve lost a horseshoe that you’ve found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn’t ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep of bad luck when you’d killed a spider”(5).

In chapter four Huck sees Pap’s footprints in the snow. So Huck goes to Jim to ask him why Pap is here. Jim gets a hair-ball that is the size of a fist that he took from an ox’s stomach. Jim asks the hair-ball; Why is Pap here? But the hair-ball won’t answer. Jim says it needs money, so Huck gives Jim a counterfeit quarter. Jim puts the quarter under the hair-ball. The hair-ball talks to Jim and Jim tells Huck that it says. “Yo’ole father doan’ know yit what he’s a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he spec he’ll go ‘way, en den ag’in he spec he’ll stay. De bes’ way is tores’ easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey’s two angles hoverin’ roun’ ’bout him. One uv’em is white en shiny, en t’other one is black. De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sil in en gust it all up. A body can’t tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him at de las’. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable trouble in yo’ life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you’s gwyne to git well ag’in.

Dey’s two gals flyin’ ’bout yo’ in yo’ life. One uv ‘em’s light en t’other one is dark. One is rich en t’other is po’. You’s gwyne to marry de po’ one fust en de rich one by en by. You wants to keep ‘way fum de water as much as you kin, en don’t run no resk, ‘kase it’s down

in de bills dat you’s gwyne to git hung” (19). Huck goes home and goes up to his room that night and Pap is there.

In Chapter 8 when Huck finds Jim, who escaped from Miss Watson because she was going to sell him down the river. That evening Jim exposes Huck to his knowledge of superstition. Some young birds flew by, and Jim said that it was a sign that it was going to rain. Huck wanted to go catch some of them, but Jim said that if he did that then it would mean death. Jim also said that you mustn t count that things you are going to have for dinner, or it would bring bad luck, it was also bad luck if you shook the tablecloth after sundown. And if a man had a beehive and that man died the bees must be told about it before sun-up the next morning, or they would die. Jim said bees won t sting idiots; but I didn t believe that, because I had tried them lots of times myself, and they wouldn t sting me (45).

In Chapter ten, Huck and Jim run into good luck and bad luck. The good luck was Huck and Jim finds eight dollars in the pocket of an overcoat. After dinner on Friday, they are lying in the grass, then Huck ran out of tobacco, so he went to the craven to get some, and finds a rattlesnake. Huck kills it and curled it up and put it on the foot of Jim’s blanket. Night came and Jim flung himself on the blanket and the snake’s mate was there, and it bit Jim on the heel. Jim tells Huck to chop off the snake’s head, then skin the body of the snake and roast a piece of it. He took the rattles off and tied them to Jim s wrist. Jim said it would help him. Huck says “I made up my mind I wouldn’t ever take a-holt of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what had come of it” (52).

As one can see Superstition plays an important role in the novel Huck Finn. Huck killing the spider which is bad luck, the hair-ball that tells fortunes, and the rattle-snake skin that Huck touched are examples that brought bad luck to Huck and Jim in the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.