Lying

Chapter 7
Huck lies to Pap about why there is a loaded gun aiming at him. He convinces him that the gun was set up because someone was trying to break into the cabin.

In the next scene he lies again, after jumping in the river to retrieve a canoe. He tells Pap he fell in.

Finally he prepares the big lie- he fakes his death, with all the detail of a Sherlock Holmes mystery.

Merciful

Chapter 8
Jim is telling the story of his escape, and we find out that the widow didn't want Miss Watson to sell Jim. Don't know yet whether this belongs in the mercy category.

Recall that Jesus tells the story of how the relationship between humans and the relationship to God is indistinguishable.
From Matt 25:

The Sheep and the Goats31-33 “When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.34-36 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why:I was hungry and you fed me,I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,I was homeless and you gave me a room,I was shivering and you gave me clothes,I was sick and you stopped to visit,I was in prison and you came to me.’37-40 “Then those ‘sheep’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’41-43 “Then he will turn to the ‘goats,’ the ones on his left, and say, ‘Get out, worthless goats! You’re good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—I was hungry and you gave me no meal,I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,I was homeless and you gave me no bed,I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,Sick and in prison, and you never visited.’44 “Then those ‘goats’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn’t help?’45 “He will answer them, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.’46 “Then those ‘goats’ will be herded to their eternal doom, but the ‘sheep’ to their eternal reward.”

Thus I look for the treatment of Jim by Huck, and Huck by Jim, as indicators of how each understands God, or at least, how the understanding of God develops and is revealed over the course of their adventure together.

Superstition

Is it a sign of immature faith that just as we imagine God as the great puppeteer, we imagine evil forces as something that we can have power over by ritual.

Chapter 1

Huck imagines:

The leaves rustling as mournful.
An owl who-whooing about somebody that was dead.
A whippoorwill...., also signaling that someone is dead.
A dog crying about somebody that was about to die.
The wind whispering something that he couldn't make out.
The woods making a sound that a ghost makes.

He experiences:
A spider is killed and reflects bad luck.

He turns around 3 times.
He ties up a lock of his hair with a thread to keep witches away.
There is no antidote for killing a spider.

As Huck is transformed by love, will this superstition, and the interpretation of the sights and sounds of nature, be transformed as signs of God, not signs of the devil?


Chapter 2

After Tom plays a trip on the sleeping Jim by hanging his hat on a tree branch, Jim builds a narrative that witches came to him and took him away and then put him back and hung the hat on a tree.
So clearly Jim believes in witches and is superstitious as well.

Chapter 8

Huck is presumed dead. Drowned.
How does one find a body that has been drowned in the river?
Not sure whether this is superstition, but the town folks fire a cannon over the water, hoping that it will bring the body up from the bottom. In the footnotes to the chapter, Hearn confirms that this is a superstition, and not scientific. [Chapter 8, footnote 2]
Another superstition, clearly, is the practice of filling a loaf of bread with some quicksilver (mercury) so that it would float near where a body lay. [footnote 3]
This superstition is reported by Huck, so he has shown us that he is just as superstitious as Jim.

Chapter 10

In Chapter 9, Huck and Jim discover a body in a house floating down the river. Jim won't let Huck look at the face. Here is chapter 10, when Huck asks Jim to talk about the dead man, Jim gets out of it by telling Huck it would be bad luck. So here Jim uses superstition to avoid revealing that the body was Pap. Still, Jim may have really believed it was bad luck. But here superstition comes in handy as a way to avoid talking about the truth.

Then, in a second superstition story, Huck reveals that he picked up a snake skin, and Jim assured him it was bad luck. Huck plays a mean trick, putting a dead snake near Jim's blanket, a second snake came and curled around it, and then bit Jim. Huck blames it on bad luck, to avoid taking responsibility. Another example of using superstition as a diversion from the truth.
This leads to more talk: roast a piece of the snake; take off the rattles and wear them; the snake skin curse is not as bad as looking at the new moon over your left shoulder.

Friendship

Chapter 8

It is in this chapter that we first look at the relationship between Huck and Jim.

As I look at the premise that Jim is mentoring Huck in the art of spiritual awakening, I want to be careful not to see that Huck is having a similar affect on Jim. It seems that, in this chapter, Huck is the one who is showing some degree of love, or at least friendship when he encounters Jim, promises not to turn him in, and is concerned that he hasn't eaten anything but strawberries since he arrived on the island.

Looking at the sequence:

Huck remarks, when he first sees that Jim is on the island with him by the campfire:
"I bet I was glad to see him."

Jim, thinking he is seeing a ghost, after asking the ghost to leave him alone, remarks:

'...'at 'uz awluz yo' fren'." (what was always your friend)

Huck proceeds to convince Jim that he isn't dead. This is not Tom Sawyer, who probably would have played along for awhile. We don't see that cruel streak in Huck, and probably won't.

Then he says:
"I was ever so glad to see Jim."
and
"I warn't lonesome, now."
and
"I told him I warn't afraid of him telling the people where I was." The italics are Twain's.

Then there is an exchange about what Jim has eaten, which culminates with Huck's concern:
"Well, you must be most starved, ain't you?"

Huck then proceeds to share all that he has, bacon, sugar, coffee, etc.

So, up until this point the exchange is that Huck is happy to see Jim; he needs companionship. He is happy to share what he has. He is concerned about Jim's hunger. He trusts that Jim won't betray Huck's deception about his fake death.

Why is this? Is there a prior history here? Jim has said that he has always Huck's friend. Or is this the first we see that Huck has a deeper self that sees Jim as a human being? Is Huck falsely pretending to care for Jim because he needs a companion?
I guess I don't buy it. Huck was doing perfectly fine by himself. He doesn't need a companion, or at least we think he doesn't given it's still early in his adventurous escape.
Of course there is the argument that he's glad that Jim is not an enemy. There is relief that Jim is not a stranger. But could that account for such generosity and concern?

Now comes the first test of this 'friendship':

Jim reveals to Huck that he has escaped, and is now a runaway slave.

Jim reminds Huck that just minutes before he has promised to keep what Jim is about to tell him a secret.

Huck says:
"Well I did. I said I wouldn't and I'll stick to it. Honest injun I will. People would call me a low down Ablitionist and despise me for keeping mum - but that don't make no difference. I ain't agoing to tell, and I ain't agoing back there anyways."

So we have two ways to look at this:
First, the integrity of giving your word. Huck didn't know what the story was when he promised not to tell. When the story was revealed, a slave that had run away, Huck could have said that even though he promised, the story was sufficiently bad enough that Huck could not keep his promise.

So is Huck keeping his word because he had promised, or is this Huck's first test about what he considers to be an injustice?

First of all, Huck sees his own story here. He has escaped himself, probably from death. He has this in common with Jim now.

And I think more importantly, we already have seen evidence that Huck sees Jim as a fellow human being, concerned for his health. Now he is concerned for his freedom.

It may be too early to draw this conclusion.

Continuing the development of the friendship:

Jim tells the story of his escape. Something Huck can appreciate.
There is more discussion about superstitions.
Jim then tells how he lost his riches ($14) to speculation.

So this long discussion of adventures and life's lessons draws us closer into the companionship that has been revealed.

Finally, there is this statement by Jim after Huck remarks that perhaps Jim will be rich again:

"Yes- en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns myself, en I's wuth eight hund'd dollars." (Miss Watson was going to sell him for that much)

There is a whole basket of emotions in reading that statement. The sadness that a human is valued in dollars. The pride in Jim that he is worth so much. The humor in the juxtaposition of the two.

Chapter 11
Time for Huck to show concern for his friend. When he sneaks away to town dressed as a girl, the old lady in the shack tells him that the town thinks that either Pap or Jim murdered Huck. Huck is horrified, and has trouble concealing it. The nature of his questions, "are they going over tonight" referring to her husbands desire to hunt Jim on Jackson's Island, gives him away.

Chapter 16
Huck receives two twenty dollar gold pieces from the men on a skiff who don't want to help Huck and 'his pap' because they suspect they have smallpox. Huck doesn't 'give' Jim money. He simply states that they had twenty dollars 'apiece'.

Ignorance

How are ignorance and superstition related?

Esoteric vs Exoteric. Max suggests that first one must reject the exoteric before one can appreciate the esoteric. At first, Huck's understanding of truth beyond what he experiences is tied into Miss Watson's and Aunt Sally's exoteric understanding of the Bible, and superstition, which he hears from others, including Jim.


Chapter 1.
Huck is convinced by Tom to return to the Widow Douglas' home by offering him a chance to join his newly formed band of robbers.
So we start out with the quaint observation that Huck and Tom are going to play at being robbers. Innocent enough. As a child I played cowboys and indians, and inevitable, someone got shot. Noone really was harmed (whether we should have assumed the indians were the bad guys is another story).
So on the one hand, it's just pretend, right? Or will there be evidence later on, much as there was in Tom Sawyer, that people will actually be harmed? 
If so, and if Huck knows this as early as Chapter 1, then in fact we come to the first stop of the spectrum of Huck's formation- he is unaware that he is, or will be, hurting people by playing the robber role.
Moral ignorance? What do we call this?

Chapter 2

Tom forms his band of robbers. One of the conditions is that if someone betrays the gang, his family must be killed. Huck has no family (at least noone knows whether his Dad is dead or alive). But Huck, about to be disinvited to the gang, offers that Miss Watson could be killed. The gang agrees so Huck is allowed to join the gang.

This moral ignorance, with no basis in reality or experience, but only fantasy, seems like a setup for a crisis. Eventually the opportunity to kill someone for real will present itself, and the clash of fantasy and the real will represent a growth event along the path to compassion and love.


Chapter 5

Here Huck encounters his father, 'Pap'. Pap has heard that Huck can read, and has money. Now Huck is not really educated, but compared to Pap, he is learned, and Pap proceeds to deride Huck for purposely trying to denigrate and embarrass his Father by educating himself. No matter that Huck himself has not really sought out an education, but has been forced to submit by the widow and Miss Watson.
In an almost throwaway line, Pap says that he has heard that he has got religion too.

Chapter 8

I don't know if it really is right to call it humor, but at the end of the chapter, Jim claims that he is still rich because he is worth eight hundred dollars, the amount that the widow was going to sell him for to the slave trader. Something in the statement makes me smile, that Jim takes some sort of pride in the fact that he is worth so much money.

Contemplation

Somewhere defined as a long look at the real. I need to find that quote.

I'm including here the contemplative thoughts of Huck, which of course I'm projecting onto Huck, but which I also firmly believe in when a person notices what is usually something ordinary as extraordinary.


Chapter 7:

In Chapter 7, Huck has completed his bloody escape designed to fool everyone into thinking he has been murdered, and is floating down the river to his destination Jackson Island in a canoe he found.
"I laid there and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe, looking away into the sky, not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the moonlshine; I never knowed it before."

Also, as he is floating down the river, "Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late, and smelt late." (Twain's italics). It is another example of Huck's sense of the world, that lateness smells.

He also notices, in general, throughout his voyage down the river, that he can really hear well on the river. The acoustics over water.

Chapter 8:

Huck describes Jackson island and the river, which 'always looks pretty on a summer morning'. There are descriptions of leaves and spots of sunshine. How is it that a boy of this simple mind notices and describes beauty? Is it normal for a boy of this age to describe the beauty of nature, much less to even notice it?
Or how about this: "I see a bunch of smoke laying on the water a long ways up.."? He notices that the smoke is not just in the air, but laying on the water. What an image!

Chapter 9:

Huck's describes the storm. P98.

Self Sacrifice and Humility

References to Huck's self-sacrifice for Jim, are, I'm sure, preceded by instances of Jim's self-sacrifice for Huck. Can't Jim more efficiently and quietly slip down the river without having to baby sit Huck?

Reading Howard Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited, he makes this point:

When faced with oppression from power, there are alternatives:

Non-resistance.
Resistance.

Jesus chose a form of resistance, but an entirely new form: humility.

"humility cannot be humiliated" is quoted from Vladimir Simkhovitch's Toward the Understanding of Jesus.

One who is truly humble has possibly attained no vulnerability to fear.

Is it worth looking at Jim as one whose entire strength in dealing with his singular journey to escape and reunite with his family comes from humility? Where would this humility have come from? Is it the same quality that Jesus embodied?

So are there signs, in each of the encounters that Twain chronicles of Jim, of this humility as the source of strength?

Chapter 8

Huck encounters Jim on Jackson's Island, and immediately, and without hesitation, offers Jim all that he has to eat.

Structure and Approach

One option is to lay out chapters by virtue, e.g., humility, compassion, etc., and then follow the development of those in the journey.

I've stopped (2/12) reading too far ahead (now on Chapter 3) to take some side readings on the 'Two Providences'.
Thanks to Max, and to the footnotes in the annotated HF, there are two areas that have a great deal of analysis:

THE TWO PROVIDENCES
The Two Providences, which is basically Miss Watson vs the Widow Douglas. Miss Watson represents the institutional church view that the reason to behave is to avoid 'the bad place'. The widow represents the (I don't know how to label this yet) view that it's treating other people well, loving your neighbor, is how you avoid hell.
This is, in my view, classical religion, and Edgar Branch and others point out that both are still self-serving.
In my view, the widow's Providence is closer to the great truth that Jesus espouses, and for that matter, you find in all great religions- that the 'Kingdom', self realization and union with God, comes as one let's go of the self, lives selflessly, unattached to the superficial desires of this world.
More on this as we progress, but the stage is set by chapter 3, that Huck must choose between these two world views.

Second, and probably more prevalent, is the conversion of Huck. There are several instances of this, especially the scene (I'm recalling without reading it) where Huck pronounces that he would rather go to hell than to turn Jim in to the slave traders. Love triumphs, as does selflessness.

So the approach will be to follow the thread of Hucks struggle with these two providences. Or I should say, one approach or one line.

CONSOLATION/DESOLATION
However, thanks to some of the reading I've done so far, I've also realized that there will be an opportunity to directly tie in St Ignatius' great work on Consolation/Desolation in the Spiritual Exercises.

There is a particular passage that I recall that represents clearly what Ignatius called 'False Consolation'. Huck, at some point which I'll flush out later, decides to return Jim to Miss Watson, and he feels a sudden sense of calm and peace. Ignatius says that we should beware of a consolation (which he defines as a turning toward God) that in fact is false, because, in his 15th century language, the devil uses consolation to trick the person.

So I'll be looking for the 4 variations :Consolation. False Consolation. Desolation. False Desolation.

Finally, Max helped me externalize this: I wonder whether superstition in Jim, rather than be a source of the readers disdain and feeling of superiority, even comic relief, actually contributes to Jim's character?

SUPERSTITION AND IGNORANCE
There is a thread of showing the power of superstition in Huck and Jim. I wonder how they both are formed by this? Is there a difference between them?
Same for ignorance. Huck is uneducated. His Pap is uneducated. But Huck's is the result of laziness. Pap has a disdain for education and in fact is proud that his ancestors were illiterate.

CONTEMPLATION

There are some incidents of the contemplative experience that break in, sometimes in stark contrast to the base story.
In Chapter 7, Huck has completed his bloody escape designed to fool everyone into thinking he has been murdered, and is floating down the river to his destination Jackson Island in a canoe he found.
"I laid there and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe, looking away into the sky, not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the moonlshine; I never knowed it before."

STYLISTIC COMPARISON
The idea, which I get from Brown, is to take two different characters and see how they handle the same situation, e.g., getting lost in a storm.
Or conversely, take two similar characters and see how the handle the same situation (Prince and the Pauper).

THE RIVER AND THE SHORE
The shore represents vulgarity, greed, fraud, violence, malice.
The raft represents freedom, security, happiness, and harmony with physical nature.
 -Hutchinson

SOUND HEART/DEFORMED CONSCIENCE
From Twains diary:
" a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and the conscience suffers defeat."

IRONY

Irony involves a deliberate misstatement designed to highlight the longtime adverse affects of a grossly immoral act, a blatantly dishonest deed, or an inhumane and un-Christian practice.

Desolation

317.4. SPIRITUAL DESOLATION. I call desolation what is entirely the opposite of what is described in the third rule, as darkness of soul, turmoil of spirit, inclination to what is low and earthly, restlessness rising from many disturbances and temptations which lead to want of faith, want of hope, want of love. The soul is wholly slothful, tepid, sad, and separated, as it were, from its Creator and Lord. For just as consolation is the opposite of desolation, so the thoughts that spring from consolation are the opposite of those that spring from desolation.
318. 5. In time of desolation we should never make any change, but remain firm and constant in the resolution tion and decision which guided us the day before the desolation, or in the decision to which we adhered in the preceding consolation. For just as in consolation the good spirit guides and counsels us, so in desolation the evil spirit guides and counsels. Following his counsels we can never find the way to a right decision.
319. 6. Though in desolation we must never change our former resolutions, it will be very advantageous to intensify our activity against the desolation. We can insist more upon prayer, upon meditation, and on much examination of ourselves. We can make an effort in a suitable way to do some penance.
320. 7. When one is in desolation, he should be mindful ful that God has left him to his natural powers to resist the different agitations and temptations of the enemy in order to try him. He can resist with the help of God, which always remains, though he may not clearly perceive it. For though God has taken from him the abundance of fervor and overflowing love and the intensity tensity of His favors, nevertheless, he has sufficient grace for
eternal salvation.
321. 8. When one is in desolation, he should strive to persevere in patience. This reacts against the vexations that have overtaken him. Let him consider, too, that consolation will soon return, and in the meantime, he must diligently use the means against desolation which have been given in the sixth rule.
322. 9. The principal reasons why we suffer from desolation are three: The first is because we have been tepid and slothful or negligent in our exercises of piety, and so through our own fault spiritual consolation has been taken away from us. The second reason is because God wishes to try us, to see how much we are worth, and how much we will advance in His service and praise when left without the generous reward of consolations and signal favors. The third reason is because God wishes to give us a true knowledge and understanding of ourselves, so that we may have an intimate perception of the fact that it is not within our power to acquire and attain great devotion, intense love, tears, or any other spiritual consolation; but that all this is the gift and grace of God our Lord. God does not wish us to build on the property of another, to rise up in spirit in a certain pride and vainglory and attribute to ourselves the devotion tion and other effects of spiritual
consolation.
323• 10. When one enjoys consolation, let him consider sider how he will conduct himself during the time of ensuing desolation, and store up a supply of strength as defense against that day.
324• 11. He who enjoys consolation should take care to humble himself and lower himself as much as possible. sible. Let him recall how little he is able to do in time of desolation, when he is left without such grace or consolation. On the other hand, one who suffers desolation should remember that by making use of the sufficient grace offered him, he can do much to withstand

Louis J. Puhl. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: Based on Studies in the Language of the Autograph (Kindle Locations 994-998). Kindle Edition.

Consolation

Per Ignatius:
I call it consolation when an interior movement is aroused in the soul, by which it is inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord, and as a consequence, can love no creature on the face of the earth for its own sake, but only in the Creator of them all. It is likewise consolation when one sheds tears that move to the love of God, whether it be because of sorrow for sins, or because of the sufferings of Christ our Lord, or for any other reason that is immediately directed to the praise and service of God. Finally, I call consolation every increase of faith, hope, and love, and all interior joy that invites and attracts to what is heavenly and to the salvation of one's soul by filling it with peace and quiet in its Creator and Lord.

Louis J. Puhl. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: Based on Studies in the Language of the Autograph (Kindle Locations 972-976). Kindle Edition.


In chapter 16, Huck wrestles with his conscience, and decides to turn in Jim. He convinces himself that this is the right thing because he felt easy and happy. p 154.

Prayer

Chapter 1: Supper Prayer

The widow would 'tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals..."

Chapter 3: Petitionary vs Emptying of Self [The two providences]

Miss Watson teaches him about prayer.
First, she takes him in the closet after he returns all mussed up from his adventure in Chapter 2 with Tom and the gang.
"She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it."
Once he got a fish line but no hooks.
He takes prayer as a literal list of requests for himself.
He asks Miss Watson and she calls him a fool.

Then, in a subtle aside, Huck set down in the woods (earlier) and had 'a long think about it'.
This second prayer reflects a kind of contemplative prayer, where Huck is asking for some guidance on what prayer really is, and why it doesn't 'work'. Again he cites examples of what is 'not working'- money lost, recovery of stolen goods. "Why can't Miss Watson fat up?".

After a time, he says to himself(always an indicator of the possibility of a conversation with God) that since he can't figure it out, he'll ask the widow.
Obviously at this point he is unhappy with the answer he has given himself that prayer doesn't work, and trusts the widow to straighten him out.

She tells him, because at this point he is open to hearing it, that he was to pray for 'spiritual gifts'.

Spiritual Gifts.

And so we now get to one of the central threads of my investigation of Jim and Huck, as the widow explains what she means:

"I must help other people, and do everything I could for other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself."

Huck again goes into the woods, thinks about it, but couldn't see any advantage to this approach (except for the other people).

But the seed is planted.

Huck recognizes the difference as two Providences.

The widow's Providence showed promise. Miss Watson's Providence left him with a feeling of hopelessness.

He decides that he will choose the widow's way.

This is the first of the great conversations Huck has with himself regarding God and how God moves among humans.

Chapter 8:
"now I reckon the widow or the parson or somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it has done it. So there ain't no doubt but there is something in that thing."

This in reference to the 1st kind of prayer that Miss Watson speaks about, petitionary prayer, And because the loaf floats near to shore at Jackson island, Huck concludes the prayer has worked. This kind of thinking, deduction from evidence that has other explanations, like the natural current of the water, is associated with Fowler's Mythic or Literal Faith.
But Huck further observes that there are conditions to this kind of faith in prayer:
"That is, there's something in it when a body like the widow or the parson prays, but it don't work for me, and I reckon it don't work for only just the right kind."
So prayer of this kind depends on a God that grants the effectiveness of prayer only to the righteous, or the learned, or the repentant sinner, etc.
Huck will continue to struggle with this concept, that he is not good enough to warrant God's attention of the gift of getting what he wants in prayer.

Encounters by Chapter

Chapter 1
Huck and Widow
Huck and Miss Watson

Chapter 2
Huck and Tom
Huck and Jim
Huck and the Gang

Chapter 3
Huck and Miss Watson
Huck and the widow
Huck and Miss Watson
Huck and Tom

Chapter 5
Huck and Pap
Pap and Judge Thatcher
Pap and the new judge



Chapter 7
Huck and Pap

Chapter 8
Huck and Jim

Chapter 9

Huck and Jim (and dead Pap)

Chapter 10
Huck and Jim

Chapter 11
Huck pretends to be a girl so that he can find out what is going on in town, and find out the latest about his murder and Jim's escape. He meets Judith Loftus, who reveals that she is sending her husband to Jackson Island on a hunch that Jim is hiding there. She catches him playing a girl, but doesn't suspect he is Huck. Huck returns to the island and rousts Jim and they leave the island.
Huck (as Sarah Mary Williams) and Mrs. Judith Loftus
Huck and Jim (at the campfire preparing to escape)

Chapter 12
Jim and Huck find a wrecked steamboat, and climb aboard to get some loot (or truck). But there are three thieves on the wreck, and they are about to kill one of them for betrayal. Huck and Jim escape.
Jim and Huck.
Jim Turner, Bill, Jake Packard on the Steamboat wreck.

Chapter 13
Huck solicits the help of a watchman on a ferry boat to 'rescue' his 'aunt' on the wreck. He wants the thieves to be saved so they can be hung. But the wreck is soon lost, and the watchman's mission is a failure, or at least that is what we think.
Jim and Huck.
A Watchman.
Jim Turner, Jake and Bill. (Somewhere in the wreck it is implied)



Chapter 14
Jim and Huck are back on the raft, looking through the truck, and having a conversation. Huck talks about Kings and Dukes, and about Frenchmen.
This was, according to Hearn, a favorite chapter of Twain's. Huck tries to explain talking French, and Jim argues it doesn't make sense. Huck talks about King Solomon, and when the anecdote of the threat to cut the baby in half comes up, Jim argues that he is a bad king, since he literally thinks the King was going to split the baby.
At first this seems to create a sense of Jim's ignorance- taking things too literally. But on a deeper level Jim is calling out an injustice. If noone ever explained the wisdom of the threat to Jim as socratic irony, then of course Jim is going to fight for the child.
Jim and Huck.

Chapter 15
One of the most important chapters in the book, probably even literature. Here Huck and Jim get separated by a storm, and by the time they are reunited Jim is asleep. Huck convinces Jim that he dreamed the storm up, and Jim goes for the trick. But eventually, when Huck asks about the river trash on the raft, Jim realizes that there was a storm, and that his agony about having lost Huck was real. Jim admonishes Huck for the trick, and Huck, not quite for the first time, but definitely for the first consciencious time, feels Jim's pain and apologizes.
Jim and Huck

Chapter 16
As a result of the encounter in chapter 15, where Huck awakens to the humanity in Jim, this chapter sets up the duel of temperament and conscience, heart and conscience.
Twain himself states in his reading notes in 1885-86, according to Hearn, "a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat".

Unaware that they have passed Cairo, and therefore the easy path to freedom for Jim, Jim is sure that they are near the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi where a turn to the north will award freedom. He begins to anticipate, with Joy, this event.
He will save up money and buy his wife. Then they will both save up money and buy his kids back.
Huck, in the middle of this heart/head struggle, begins to judge himself as worthy of eternal punishment because he is helping a man to freedom, and not only that:
"... and saying that he would steal his children- children that belonged to a man I didn't even know: a man that hadn't ever done me no harm."

Huck actually breaks into a dialogue with his conscience, and finally makes a deal with it. He will turn in Jim.

In a perfect example of Ignatius' description of false consolation, Huck observes, once he has made up his mind, or negotiated with his conscience, to turn Jim over to runaway slave hunters:

"I felt easy, and happy, and light as a feather. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking out sharp for a light and sort of singing to myself."

Look for the tail of the snake, Ignatius cautions.

Huck takes off in the canoe, ostensibly to find out where Cairo is. He meets two men in a skiff. They ask him whether there are any men on it.

The battle continues. As Huck was rowing to the shore, Jim keeps shouting to Huck. Huck is his friend. His only friend. "...de on'y white genlman dat ever kep' his promise to old Jim'"
Huck "... it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me."

And so the consolation is revealed as desolation. A betrayal of Jim leads to death of the soul, away from God. The conscience has suffered defeat.

Huck then plays what Jim calls the 'smartes dodge'. He pretends that his pap is on the raft with smallpox (although he never says this; the men just assume).

The men leave, but not without feeling guilty that they have abandoned Huck and his pap for their own safety. They both offer 20 dollars each to Huck.

A side note: In what is probably an unnoticed line, Huck says: " Then we (he and Jim) talked about the money. It was a pretty good raise; twenty dollars apiece."

Not, "I gave Jim twenty dollars." Not, we pooled our money to buy something later. Huck just says, as a matter of fact, that they both got twenty dollars out of the ruse. Huck shows that he has shifted from the trickster in chapter 15 to a friend and partner here. It is a huge shift.

Huck returns to the raft, and continues his battle with his conscience. This is a 14 year old boy. He asks himself "s'pose you'd a done right and give Jim up; would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I [who is he talking to?] I'd feel bad- I'd feel just the same way I do now." He observes that because he didn't get started right (the conscience trained by associations) he is 'beat'
He vows from this point on to always do whichever come handiest at the time.

Finally, Huck is separated from Jim when the raft is struck by a riverboat.

The book takes a side trip to the Grandersons.

Jim and Huck.
Two slave hunters.
An unnamed man setting a trot line.
A riverboat pilot shouting at them when the raft is struck by the boat.

Chapter 17.
(Hearn posits that this chapter came after a long break in writing.)

This chapter sets up the dark story of a family that is involved in a feud. Although only hinted at in this chapter, we get the premonition that something is wrong here. Boys with guns. A Father that assures the 14 year old son that his time to shoot someone with the gun will surely come. The obsession with death that their deceased daughter reveals with poetry and drawing.

Huck begins to befriend Buck, a boy his age.

He has inner dialog (again this is a 14 year old boy) about poetry, and about his thoughts of the deceased daughter, Emmeline and her macabre poetry and art.

Huck. (as George Jackson)
The Grangerford family. Colonel. Buck. Emmaline (deceased). Tom and Bob. Charlotte. Sophia.
Servants.
Three sons that got killed.


Chapter 18.

Huck.
Grangerford family.
Harney Shepherson.
Sophia (asking Huck to retrieve a note in her bible at church)
Hucks slave, Jack. (who leads him to Jim)
Jim.

Huck learns about the feud from Buck when they are out near the river and see Harney on a horse. Buck shoots at him. Harney fires back. Noone is shot. Huck asks about the feud, and Buck doesn't really know what started it.
Huck claims that Harney is a coward for firing at them. Buck defends all the Shepherdsons as brave.

Buck and Huck, the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons go to church with their guns. They sit together and listen to a sermon about faith, good works, and free grace. And 'preforeordestination', a neologism of tenants of Presbyterianism. Predestination and Foreordination.
Obviously the two families are not hearing any of this, but Huck notices the irony. ".. it did seem to me to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet."

Jack leads Huck to a secret hiding place where he finds Jim. The Grangerford slaves have helped Jim. The raft is not wrecked after all.

Sophia runs off with Harney.

The Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons go to battle and the Col and his two brothers were killed. Huck goes after them, climbs a tree and then witnesses as the Shepherdsons kill Buck and his cousin. He cries.
Huck blames himself for failing to warn the Col that the message to Sophia from Harney had been relayed by Huck. Once again he thinks that an outcome brought about by the evils of humankind is somehow the result of his failure to follow his conscience, rather than to trust his heart.

Huck is reunited with Jim at the raft, and once again Jim tells Huck how he is so happy that Huck is not dead. He was waiting for Jack to confirm whether Huck was alive before he took off in the raft, not wanting to abandon Huck.

Chapter 19

Huck and Jim start the chapter on the river. Twain writes, through Huck, a masterpiece of a description of the river. It is the language of Huck that makes it distinguished, and Hearn writes that several authors have called this first part of the chapter Twains masterpiece. I've studied this myself in writing my description of the Broomfield farm.

Huck eventually leaves the raft to find a canoe, and runs into two rascals, who attempt to convince each other that they are a Duke and a Dauphin. Huck doesn't buy it, but doesn't let on, to keep the peace on the raft. Jim seems to think it's all on the up and up.

Huck.
Jim.
Duke.
Dauphin (king).

HERE I'VE READ RECENTLY IN HUCK AND MARK TWAIN THAT WE REALLY NOTICE THAT THE TIME ON THE RIVER IS TIME OF FREEDOM AND GOODNESS, AND TIME IN THE TOWNS FROM NOW ON WILL SHOW THE EVILNESS OF HUMANKIND.

Chapter 20

Still on the raft, Huck makes up a story about how he and Jim travel together because Jim belonged to Huck's father, who died in an accident between a steamboat and the raft.
The Duke and the Dauphin rehearse Shakespeare.
Huck and the King go to town and a town meeting. The Duke goes to a print shop (to print bills for showing that they were taking Jim back to his owner as a captured run away).
The King has an altar call as a pirate.
They leave the town richer, and are able to raft in the daytime because they now had the runaway slave flyer to show.

Huck
Jim
Duke
Dauphin

Chapter 21

Duke and King rehearse Shakespeare. Duke teaches Hamlet to the King, and Huck learns it as well.
The find a one horse town, full of 'loafers' who play tricks on dogs and hogs.
Boggs, the drunk, comes to town to harrass Sherburn. Sherburn gives him an ultimatum and eventually shoots Boggs dead. The town has fetched Boggs' daughter, but too late.
After a time of gawking, the townspeople call for lynching Sherburn.
Huck has soberly observed all of this.

Huck
Duke
Jim (at first)
King.
Loafers
Boggs
Colonel Sherburn
Boggs' daughter

Chapter 22

The mob reaches Sherburns house. He chides them for being cowards. His speech is that all men are cowards and only have courage as a mob. The crowd disburses.
Huck goes to a circus. He is fooled into thinking the clown is making up his lines ad hoc. A drunk wants to ride a horse and despite the protests of the ringmaster, finally gets his chance. The drunk pretends to be out of control, but eventually it is clear that he is actually a performer. But Huck never gets this. He has fooled Huck.
The King and Duke do their show after the circus, but it fails.
The second show is advertised for men only- no ladies and children.

Huck
Duke
King
Ringmaster
Drunk foil
Clown

Chapter 23

The new show at the courthouse. The show is short. The townspeople feel ripped off, but don't want to let the others in the town know they were tricked. They get the word out that the show is great so everyone in town will come. The second night is packed. But the third night the town comes with rotten vegetables and eggs, ready to get their revenge. But the 3 have long skipped out to the raft and the river.
Jim then observes that the King and Duke are 'rapscallions'. Huck defends them by citing fictions about other kings and says they aren't as bad. 'You got to make allowances...'.
Jim still thinks they are real royalty.

Then begins another moment of transformation:

'...I do believe that he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their'n.'

Huck gets Jim to talk about what is so agonizing to him that he is moaning and mourning.

Jim recounts the story of when he beat his daughter Elizabeth because she wasn't responding to him after he asked her to 'shet de do'. She had just had scarlet fever.
He tests the deafness by slamming the door, and then shouting, and he realized she was deaf. He is overcome with grief, and now is so ashamed of his behavior, 'de Lord God Almighty forgive po' ole Jim.'
Jim models the guilt and shame that comes from behavior that comes from ignorance, and how the solution for him is to ask for forgiveness from God.
Huck once again is exposed to the absolute humanity of Jim.



Huck
King
Duke
Jim back at the raft


Chapter 24

Duke dresses Jim up as a 'sick Arab' so that they don't have to tie Jim up all day as the 'captured runaway slave'. There is an ironic glimpse of humanity there- Jim was complaining that it was hard to have ropes on all day, and the Duke took pity.

Learning that wealthy man named Peter has died, without seeing his brother William and his other brother Harvey, from England, the King hatches a plan to defraud the family out of the Wilkes fortune.

Huck learns of this, and although he admires the plan, states "It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race".

Duke  (as a deaf and dumb man), William Wilkes
King (as Reverand Elexander Blodgett), then as Harvey Wilkes
Jim
Huck(also the 'servant' Aldolphus)
A young jake
Some towns folk.

Chapter 25

The King hatches the scheme, introduces himself as Peter's long lost brother, reads the letter giving him some of the estate (the rest goes to the girls, brother George's) and then gives all the money to the girls. The Doctor shows up and accuses them of being frauds, but noone buys it.


Mary Jane Wilkes
King (as Harvey)
Duke (as William)
Huck
Dr Robinson
Abner Shackleford

Chapter 26

King arranges for rooms for the night. Joanne grills Huck about England. Huck uses his imagination to answer questions but gets caught in lies by Joanne. He manages to wiggle out of the lie each time. Mary Jane admonishes Joanne for accusing Huck. So does Susan. Joanne has to apologize. Huck then realizes he is helping defraud these decent girls, and vows to steal the money after the heist and give it back.
Huck steals the money and sets out to hide it.

Huck (still the valley (sic))
King
Duke
Mary Jane
Susan (one of the sisters)
Joanna (another sister, a hare-lip)

Rubaiyat (Omar Khayyam)

Translation by Edgar Fitzgerald

33
Then to the rolling Heav'n itself I cried
Asking "What Lamp had Destiny to guide
Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?"
And---"A blind Understanding!" Heav'n replied.

I am anticipating that Jim has become the wise counselor to Huck, not by learned study, but by blind Understanding, the kind that comes from mystical knowing.
Look for evidence of this. Or at least look for some other explanation of what or how Jim has become such an unconditional lover.

Love

Chapter 2

Tom and Huck are sneeking off during the night, and Jim hears them. He comes close, determined to listen further, but eventually falls asleep. Tom wants to tie Jim up as a trick. Huck says no. Huck says that it's because Jim might wake up. But the reader is given a second option- Huck is not really up to playing tricks like Tom.
This will change later as Huck tricks Jim on the river into thinking Huck is dead.
But here is an early glimpse at Hucks conscience.

Chapter 8:

Jim's first real encounter with Huck on Jackson island. Huck finds him near his fire, and greets him: "Hello Jim!".
Huck says he was glad to see him.

Jim, thinking the dead Huck is a ghost, is frightened, but then begins his first revelation of who he is:

" I hain't ever done no harm to a ghos'. I awluz liked dead people, en done all I could for 'em. "

"...en doan' do nuffin to Ole Jim, 'at 'uz awluz yo' fren'."

So here is the basis for the beginning of the friendship, and for the master to teach the student. First of all, Jim tells Huck, and the reader, that he likes dead people and does all he can for them.
What does that mean? Is that just superstition? How can we read further into this seemingly throwaway statement?
At it's most basic, Jim is offering that he is respectful of the dead, perhaps prays for them, or performs some sort of ritual to honor them. We don't know. But at it's most simple I think it means that he shows he is capable of love towards the departed souls.

And then, further, Jim says that he has always been Huck's friend. We don't have evidence of that (unless I don't recall from Tom Sawyer). We do know that Huck was reluctant to trick Jim in chapter 2. So there must have been previous encounters.
What has Jim already seen in Huck to reveal that Huck has always been his friend? It would have been acceptable for Jim to have just said "Huck I AM your friend".

Further, Huck reflects that he was glad to see Jim and he wasn't afraid that Jim would rat him out. And that he was no longer lonesome.
So at this first encounter we see trust, friendship, and what appears to be a human to human encounter.

Then in a conversation about preparing a meal, Huck appears to be genuinely concerned that Jim has had nothing to eat but strawberries for the last 3-5 days.
After a meal of catfish and bacon and meal and coffee, they 'laid off and lazied'; so it is apparent that Huck is comfortable just hanging out with Jim.


As Jim recounts his escape, another sentiment about Huck: "I 'us powerful sorry you 's killed Huck, but I ain't no mo' , now."

Trope: Black teaches White

Discussion with Max has me thinking that I want to avoid the mere trope that this is a story of the white boy looking for teaching for the wise black man. He used the reference of Mr Miyagi in the Karate Kid.

Rather, I am hoping I can present this as a disciple story, and Jim simply has wisdom that comes from his Godliness, or, if that is too much to propose, from his ability to love unconditionally, wherever that came from.

Open Mindedness vs. Closed Mindedness

The spiritual equivalent of this may be detachment, or disengagement. Attachment to outcomes, according to Buddhist tradition, and Jesus' own admonition with the rich man, causes suffering and leads one away from fulfillment.

Chapter 1.
In his conversation with Miss Watson, the Widow Douglas' sister, his defiance (to put his feet up, to yawn and stretch, to resist his spelling lesson, to slump instead of sitting up straight) leads her to threaten him with the possibility that this behavior would lead him to hell (or the bad place).
Huck, responds that "I wished I was there".
Shocked, she tells him that she would never utter such a wish.
Huck therefore concludes that since she wishes that she would never go to hell, and since he doesn't want to be around her and acquiesce to her discipline, he concludes:

"Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going (ie. heaven or the good place), so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it."

I can't decide whether this belongs under the Open category, or Ignorance.
For Huck, he has no idea of the possible horror that being send to hell would signify. Whatever it is, it isn't like being subject to Miss Watson's discipline. Ignorance. But perhaps he just doesn't buy that there is a hell? He doesn't make that observation.

However, when talking about Open Mindedness, we have to observe that Miss Watson is caught in that Victorian world where hell is a real place where a conscious soul suffers and is completely aware that they are in hell, and therefore it is a place to be avoided, and to help others to avoid. 
Huck sees this. 
So he is faced with an example of someone who has a shallow view of the nature of good and evil, heaven and hell. A close-mindedness about biblical concepts that are archaic, even in the 19th century.
Now I can't say Huck is open minded, and thinking of hell and heaven in an enlightened way. But he is resistant to the old trick of threatening someone with hell as a means to make them behave or acquiesce to discipline.

At last Miss Watson tries to attract Huck with a description of heaven as a place where one sings and plays harp all day long. What is attractive to her is repulsive and boring to Huck.

Hypocrisy

Chapter 1.
Huck asks the Widow Douglas whether he can smoke, and she admonishes him for the nasty habit. But Huck laments that she herself uses snuff.
"And she took snuff too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself."
He notices hypocrisy, and whether he knows it or not, responds with sarcasm. But here we see  virtue that is already within Huck- that of knowing that it's not OK to admonish others for something that you yourself are guilty of doing. 
Of course this assumes that Huck equates smoking tobacco and using snuff, and the Widow does not. We know today of course that both are harmful to your health, but it's possible that in 1885 snuff was safe and acceptable whereas smoking tobacco was foul smelling and messy. Doubt that the serious link with cancer was common knowledge then.
The point is, that Huck's moral compass identifies and calls out hypocrisy. 

Is Huck a hypocrite? Look for signs of that.

Fear

There is a difference between violent confrontation for the disinherited  when it is 'one sided violence', that is, you not only have no hope of winning the confrontation with the adversary, but the whole of society is against you. Even if you win the fight, you will lose because there will be no justice.

Isaiah and Mark Twain

I'm reading Isaiah as a way to keep the Bible in mind while I write about HF. I'm not sure why. Partly because Isaiah is quoted so often by Jesus, and others.
What I am finding in early reading is that the oracle nature of I is also what I imagine Twain is at with HF- that is the admonition of repentance, not for Israel, but for the US in 1885. Isaiah just comes out and says it. Twain tells a story, and uses Socratic irony to nudge the reader toward repulsion at racism and supremacy of power and greed, not to mention white power.

I've not yet begun reading HF; I'm struggling with whether to read up on other material that I need to keep in mind before I begin looking for clues about spiritual awakening.

Yesterday I was thinking about Fowler's stages of faith, and that early stage of blind acceptance of the anthropromorphic nature of God, as the puppeteer. I recall that in early HF his aunt is explaining the value of prayer as a way to ask for what you want, so I hope to write about that connection.

That reminds me, that I think my approach is going to be to look for parts of the story to pull out to illustrate a particular 'growth spurt'. Those, I hope, will be the basis for the retreats that I hope to develop.

In Isaiah 6 is the famous dialog 'Here am I, send me' after God touches, through a seraph, his lips with a burning coal. And then comes the dialog that Jesus repeats occasionally in his own ministry: keep listening but do not comprehend, keep looking but do not understand.
Of course the first inclination is to think " why would God do that? Doesn't God want us to listen and understand? Isn't that God's job?"
But before redemption, God needs hearts to be hardened a little further before redemption is possible.

So let's look for the people surrounding Huck to be on the cusp of redemption, but then get delayed a little longer.

Also in I 7, Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel (God is with us).

Profession of Ignorance vs. Actual Ignorance

[As I prepare for this project, I'm struggling on paper, or 'on blogger', with my approach. I figure that for awhile, perhaps even throughout this process, I should document my struggle with the project, as well as write the 'paper', in parallel. We'll see how that works.]


I read, with insight, a reflection on HF that posited that one must read the novel with an understanding of Socratic irony*.

Socratic Irony:

Profession of ignorance and of willingness to learn, used as a ploy to spur others to discover their own ignorancethrough their attempts to explain a word or concept.

The insight has caused me to think about my approach to this project: to look for the spiritual evolution of Huck (and perhaps others) as directed by Jim.

Why would I, as a relatively uneducated academic (B.S., Engineering Physics) be able to offer insights into one of the most complex novels in literature? Isn't what I'm proposing a Masters thesis or even more? What qualifies me to begin this endeavor?

My hope is that my profession of ignorance, or more accurately, my ignorance, will serve me well as I look for clues into this story of the oppressed, the orphan and the widow.

I think it is too sophisticated a task for me to take on- to approach the project using Socratic irony myself. Pretending to not understand something like Huck's moral revulsion to playing a trick in order to make my reader understand their own feelings about such, is beyond my ability.

Still, the point here is that actual ignorance may give me some insight that others might miss. At least that is my hope.

That said, I do think I have some learning that may distinguish me when it comes to spiritual direction, and the process which unfolds as one awakens spiritually. So I will not come from a place of complete innocence.

But I think that I will have to navigate through a theme that I can't avoid, racism. A theme that, as a white male, will be difficult for me. I'll do some reading to get myself prepared (Howard Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited for starters). But I want to try to see this book as the journey of two humans. I'm prepared to fail.

Addendum 2/1: Twain is deconstructing doctrine and superstition. But probably not Gospel.

Chapter 12
Here is an example of ignorance, actual ignorance. Huck doesn't understand that Pap is completely evil:
"Pap always said, take a chicken when you get a chance, because if you don't want him yourself you can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't ever forgot. I never see pap when he didn't want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway."



*Teaching Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Shelley Fisher Fishkin
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/teachers/huck/essay.html