Kinda Like Huck Essay, Research Paper

Kinda like Huck , this here?s ?bout true?some stretchin?, but mostly true. Now I don?t know Huck Finn or Mr. Twain personal, but I know ?bout ?em. There?s some thangs you oughta know ?bout the feud he told ?bout in his story what might put some more paint on the way you picture it.

Mr. Twain, he musta hatched up the feud idee off?n the Hatfields and McCoys outta West Virginia ?bout the same time as he was writin? The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A hillbilly rivalry turn?t into a genu-wine ?merican legend ?cause it was wrote up in the newspapers all the time. Near ?bout any magazine or paper you could name run a story ?bout soon as gettin? wind of one thing or ?nuther outta them hills. Why, people out in California could read ?bout it in the San Francisco Examiner and folks in New York could pick up The World an? likely as not find a story on the Hatfield / McCoy business. Sho, jus? soon as them paper-hawkers hear?d s? much as a squabble or peep, it?d git put to pencil that day, an? out in print the next!

There?s a reporter come down from some paper in Philly an’ talked with one o’ the younger Hatfields an? wrote ?bout it eggs-cloosive and all, bein? the first innerview with one o? the feuders themselves. The Hatfield boy up an? got hisself all worked up an? hollers: ?Blood cries out for blood!?, an? that reporter fella wrote it all an? put it in his paper. The boy ain?t had the foggiest on what the feud was ?bout an? said so! If?n you read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, you?ll find it near same as what Buck said when Huck ax? him ?bout fightin? the Shepherdsons.

?What was the trouble about, Buck??Land??

“I reckon maybe?I don?t know.?

?Well, who done the shooting??was it

a Grangerford or a Shepherdson??

?Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago.?

?Don?t anybody know??

?Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some

of the other folks; but they don?t know,

now, what the row was about in the first

place.? (pp103,104, )

The Hatfield an’ McCoy feud weren?t much differnt. What?s more, the seed of it all was a pig stealin? an’ a land deal what went sour an? went to court, an? old McCoy comin? out on the short end an? layin? for Hatfield?s boy an? shootin? him, an? by an? by they ain?t nobody ?membered how it started an? was jus? shootin? each other ?cause the other?n had shot one o? theirs, so they shot one o? the other?n, an? so on ?til it got so?s couldn?t none of ?em recollect when or why the fuss kicked up in the first place!

‘Nuther thing, too; That story ?bout Hatfields? boy runnin? off with one o? McCoy?s daughters an? gettin? hitched,–that happened ?tween a Shepherdson boy and Buck?s sister, too. Fact is, ev?body roun? here figger?d them two was courtin? an? sparkin? in secret on accounta Harney Shepherdson?d walk thru the woods singin?: ?Sopheeeeaaaaaa?.I jus? met a gal name Sopheeeeaaaaaaaa!?, an? mos? ev?body know?d who he?s singin? ?bout. ?Cept?n, ?course their folks ain?t know?d or they?d a never stood fer it, so ain?t nobody told ?em.

This piece was an exercise intending to reflect Twain?s style by use of vernacular, the run-on sentence (next-to-last-paragraph) to both compel and confuse, and weaving in re-hashed Shakespeare with an absurdly comic modern twist.

Actual influence was from a feud in Missouri involving a family named Darnell. Feud in HF parrallels feud written about in Life on the Mississippi, including location and similar details (HF, U. of California ed. with expl. footnotes)

Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 2, 5th ed., 1998, W. W. Norton and Co., New York ,( Chapters 17 and 18 ).