Research!!! :)

So far my research is going well. I am finding lots of helpful sources on Galileo and in real books! Who knew a library could be so helpfulJ I’ve used the Cyclopedia of literary characteristics and found articles by Ernest Hemmingway and Mark Twain about Huck and what all of his actions mean. I also used the TCLC encyclopedias.

One article I found addresses the factuality and lies in Huck’s stories. It talks about the ending and if it is successful or not. It talks about the failures of Mark Twain to “create a final action and a demeanor that will from a readers standpoint justify the credibility and truth” in the novel.

 I am having one issue with my research. Every article is way to long and they make my eyes blurr, they get all black. Then I get really dizzy and pass out. My mom is always wondering what happened because she finds me on the floor by the computer. Please give me tips to find shorter articles. The articles are helpful I just feel like they shouldn’t be sixteen pages each!

Also, my dad is annoying and did not connect the printer after we switched TV stuff and now Harper and I have to sit around and wait for ever for my dad to come home a press some buttons. Just so you know this means, A.K.A, referring to, fix the printer. But that’s okay because Harper makes yummy Chocolate milk. So yea moral of the story is, if I don’t have my sources on Monday it will be because my dad likes IKEA too much to come fix the printer for me and spend lovely father daughter bonding time with me.

You know, he never has time for me. He’s always going on man dates with my mommy’s   best friend’s husband. I think it’s a little weird but whatever, It’s my daddy and I love him.

It was also very difficult to get on to Galileo from home because I had to ask five hundred people what the password is for it until somebody finally knew what it is. Kristin and Alyssa saved me. Thank goodness somebody remembered. I texted Genevieve too, but her suggestion was to practical. She just told me to go to the library like a normal human being.

Research

For my research I chose to write about the change in huckleberry Finn as he changes and grows older. Do his views on what is right and wrong change?  I will also explore his change of beliefs and feelings as he changes.  For example, how he acts in chapter sixteen versus chapter thirty one.  I will do this by explaining literary elements and researching them.

In chapter sixteen he was about to tell on Jim to the men on the shore. Instead, Huck made up a lie to protect Jim without even thinking. In chapter thirty on consciously made a decision with all things on his mind and decided “alright, then I’ll go to hell.” He also said “I might as well go the whole hog.” By this statement, you can tell that he is absolutely sure about what he has decided to do. I do not feel like there is a doubt in his mind. He has discovered that Jim is as much of a person as he is. It is in this moment where I feel that Huck Finn changes the most. I feel that this is the most pivotal point in the story and their adventure to freedom.

Another point I will address is the question “Is it completely possible to be your whole true self in society?” Do they fully achieve freedom? My take on this is that they do not. Yes, the town accepts Jim a bit more but even at the end of the book Huck leaves his homes because people were trying to get him some manners. They wanted to teach him to be right. He said he was not happy and that he was going to move out to another state. I also know that a person can not truly be themselves in society due to personal experiences I have had in my lifetime as I’ve grown older and tried to do my own thing.

Huck Finn

During the Socratic seminar we mainly talked about the controversial language in the novel Huckleberry Finn. Genevieve talked about how we automatically censor our speech when we quote lines from the book. I know that’s because we are not comfortable saying some of the things Mark Twain said in the novel. That is because times have changed.

During the time of this novel they had not been changed. People acted exactly like those people in the story did. Mark Twain wanted the people pf that time period and now to see how wrong that was. He wanted to stand up for the people who were being treated unfairly. The only way to do that is to speak the truth and that is exactly what Twain did. If you alter the book it is like removing truth and history.  If the words were removed and replaced the book would loose part of its essence of truth and unfair treatment. If publishers published new versions of the story, the people who read those versions would probably not see as much of the cruelty Mark Twain meant for us to see. Quite honestly, if I read a censored version of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn I would just see it as a little boy’s adventures out of curiosity. I would just see a strange little boy breaking into bible studies and building rafts and I would completely miss the mob mentality and human cruelty references. If that happened it would totally defeat Mark twains whole purpose and reasoning behind writing the novel.

Hucks Change

In chapter 16 Huck is feeling bad because he helped a slave escape from his rightful owner Ms. Watson. He feels worse and worse as Jim talks the free states and what he is going to do when he gets there. He talks about his plan to earn money to buy his wife and children back. And how they are gonna live free. If he can’t get this family on his own he will get the abolitionists to do it. Huck feels like he has done wrong and contemplates turning Jim but his heart would not let him. He would go to tell on Jim and he’d just make up some lie to protect him. He tells the boat men that the people on the bout are his family member and they have small pox. The men decide not to search the raft and give Huck forty dollars in gold. They send him on down the river.

In chapter 31 Jim is sold and Huck thinks about telling Ms Watson where Jim is so she can get him back and Jim could be home, but Huck soon realizes that Ms Watson would just sell him. Huck writes a letter that says “Miss Watson your runaway slave Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.” He thinks “It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head; and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.” This is the line where I see the biggest change in Huck. It shows me that he really cares for Jim and he does not care about society’s lame rules. Jim feels just like he does and Jim loves just like any white person does. At  this point in the story Huck just realizes the unfairness of Jims treatment and realizes a man should be allowed to  roam free.

Huckleberry Finn

I think the book Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain was out down for several years because the author got stuck. I believe that he felt the book was going nowhere. They got lost, they were separated, their raft was gone; where could the story go? I thin Mark Twain did not just want to write solely about Huck’s adventures. He wanted there to be a purpose. In the first few chapters of the novel after Twain picked it back up and set out to finish it, you see Huck realizing the seriousness of the adventure for Jim. Jim was “all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom”, but Huck never understood. Now, he sort of saw that. When Huck and Jim approach the land, Huck lies that Jim is white and then the man gives him Money to get down the river more. I think at this point we start to really see that Jim is serious and it’s not just a fun adventure for him. In chapter eighteen, while Huck was livin’ it up with Buck Jim was hard at work. “"No, she warn't. She was tore up a good deal --one en' of her was; but dey warn't no great harm done, on'y our traps was mos' all los'. Ef we hadn' dive' so deep en swum so fur under water, en de night hadn' ben so dark, en we warn't so sk'yerd, en bensich punkin-heads, as de sayin' is, we'd a seed de raf'. But it's jis' as well we didn't, 'kase now she's all fixed up agin mos' as good as new, en we's got a new lot o'stuff, in de place o' what 'uz los'." He fixed up the raft and searched and searched so they could get on with the journey and get to freedom.

Huckelberry Finn

I think the novel is really out there, not in a bad way, it just gets the word out. It is powerful. It poses questions or religion, society, slavery and isolation. I would say this is a very bold novel and Mark Twain is very brave. He may come across as opinionated, but I believe that he just speaks the truth. I think Huck is Mark twain because they are both bold with their beliefs.

In the beginning of the book Huck says, “Well, I couldn’t see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn’t try for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn’t do no good.” This quote here shows a view on religion that heaven is not worth trying for in a boy like Huck’s mindset. He sees no point in acting a certain way to get to heaven. He’d much rather do what he wants and stand up for his own beliefs, not follow someone else’s.

There is another instance where Huck is bold and brave and it is when he and  the widow were talking about how he cant smoke and then Huck says “And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself.” Here Huck is poking at hypocrisy and questioning her authority because she does one thing and says another.

Huck is not the only bold character. Jim is strong willed and not a follower. In chapeter eight Huck and Jim are talk ing and they start talking about how the widow and Mrs Watsom were going to sell Jim for Eight hundred dollars and he says this “De widder she try to git her to say she wouldn’ do it, but I never waited to hear de res’. I lit out mighty quick, I tell you.” It basically says, they wanted to sell me but I was worth more than that. I didn’t let them sell me, I ran. This quote is a symbol of freedom and a brak from society and its dumb rules.

Hate Emily Dickinson? Well you best change your mind.

Emily Dickinson is much like me. She keeps to herself and doesn’t want to be known. She just wants to be her.  Emily Dickinson only had a few of her poems published in her day and they were posted anonymously. She writes what she wants with absolutely no intent of others seeing it; I adore her for that.

Dickinson’s poems are usually strangely punctuated and randomly capitalized. She could write something so meaningful in only one stanza. She wrote on whatever she could find and whatever came to mind. She didn’t like people new coming into her life- or her house. She kept to herself. I would say her only friend was her pen and she really didn’t mind.

Actually, that’s what she preferred. According to her, society was lame. She felt it is better to be nobody and be you than to be somebody and be like the rest of society. At least, that’s what her poem “I am Nobody, Who are you?” says. She calls society negative things like frogs.

She was private. She lived in the same house her whole life. People say that her poetry was more modern than the other poetry of her time. She was an individual. She lived in the same time period as the fireside poets, but she did not go to their gatherings. I hate to break it to you but She did not have tea with Longfellow.

If Emily and I lived in the same time period I think we would be friends. We do not agree with society and I’d wear the same thing everyday if I could. Apparently she wore white everyday for the last ten years of her life. Yep, sounds just like me.