Preview

Huckleberry Finn Quote Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
460 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Huckleberry Finn Quote Analysis
"It is not what an author says, but what he or she whispers, that is important." - Logan Pearsall Smith

Logan Pearsall Smith's statement is quite true in the world of literature. It basically means how an author can say one thing that may seem like exactly what it means, but at the same time, it can have a deeper meaning that must be interpreted carefully. In another words, the author is attempting to deliver an important message in a cryptic sense. The quote can be supported by several works of literature. Personally, the first that comes to mind is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In this novel by Mark Twain, there is symbolism involved when Huck runs away on a boat. The river here represents freedom. The "pure" water of the river "cleanses" the corruption in society that Huck is running away from. In addition to this, there is also the use of money to distinguish contrasting points of
…show more content…
As Twain did in his novel, Shakespeare also utilizes symbolism which happens to correspond to the quote. In one scene, there is a killing of a hawk by an owl. This is rather unusual in nature due to the fact that a strong aggressive hawk is overpowered by the weaker. It is parallel to how Macbeth assassinated King Duncan. By looking into it further, these two events tell us that nature is disturbed and has lost its orderliness. A second literary technique that Shakespeare uses in the tragic play is the recurring motif of blood. The blood in the play represents mainly the guilt that lasts forever. Macbeth states how not even all of Neptune's ocean will wash away the blood from his hands after killing Duncan. On the surface, it's just the matter of how blood stains are everywhere. However, what Shakespeare is "whispering" to the readers is that the blood is the guilt that Macbeth has within him. As Smith stated, what the author whispers is the true meaning behind the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Huck and Jim, from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn portray the theme of freedom throughout the story. Huck and Jim end up meeting each other afterwards both have ran from home, to be free. Huck has run away from home after faking his death to his drunken father. Huck didn’t want to stay longer with his father as it would go downhill for him, as he will get beat or even killed. Jim had become a runaway slave as he ran for his freedom. Jim ran due to him knowing he would have been sold and wouldn’t have seen his family, but instead runs to gain money and buy back his family.…

    • 196 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Huck Finn Quote Analysis

    • 280 Words
    • 2 Pages

    I think won is criticized because this scene isn't focused on the dead man or the service, it is interrupted by the undertaker. I do not think it is justified to criticize him.…

    • 280 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The themes of society and of being civilized are ever-present in Mark Twains “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. Taking place in the late 1830s, positions concerning social structure and political correctness are in stark contrast to those held today. With this in mind, it makes it difficult to determine which character would be considered the most “civilized”.…

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Huckleberry Finn Response

    • 573 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Huck teaches himself that black people are essentially different from white people. He expresses this through one quote that is written, "when we was ready to shove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it was pretty broad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with a quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger a good ways off." (Pg. 66) Huckleberry Finn assumes that people can distinguish a black person from a distance, implying a great difference in races. Twain as well, uses satire to show how hypocritical a "good Christian woman" can be when it comes to owning slaves as property. He satirizes again in the novel through the idea of family feuds, The Shepardsons and Grangerfords.Buck wants to kill the Shepardsons so bad, though he hardly knows why. The Boggs and Sherburn incident is another example. When Sherburn killed Boggs for continued provocation, the town felt the need to lynch Colonel Sherburn for his crimes. Sherburn spoke to them about their nature and how they wouldn't be able to stand against him if they weren't a group of people. Twain satirizes the idea of lynching and the human nature that goes along with whatever the crowd decides as opposed to what each individual thinks or believes.…

    • 573 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fathers are an important aspect of every person's life and have a great influence their children. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a novel by Mark Twain, Huck in a way has two fathers. While Pap Finn is Huck's real father, Jim also becomes a father figure to Huck because Jim is Pap's foil. He becomes what Pap is unable to be by protecting him and teaching him right from wrong.…

    • 756 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn one of twains first satire remarks are of the Grangerford-Shepherdson feud. "The men took their gun [to church] and kept them between their knees or stood them handily against the wall.” He brings attention to the fact that these men live in such hypocrisy going to church praising God claiming themselves religious men and once they leave they begin to kill people. By this Mark Twain’s point is that people go to church clam to be someone they’re not acting one way and once they leave they become someone completely…

    • 96 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    My Antonia Quotes

    • 2853 Words
    • 12 Pages

    "I've got a good nose for directions, and I never did need much sleep." (Pg.63)…

    • 2853 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Now that we have completed our reading of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, it is time to take a more critical look at the work.…

    • 400 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    This assignment is meant to prepare you for the second World Literature paper (2c) that will be assigned in your senior year. You need to be exposed to the specific kinds of papers on which you will be assessed in the future. Junior year is the time when you learn the basics of analysis and commentary. In senior year, you will refine these skills, increase your sophistication as a reader and a writer, and then be tested on your abilities. In this assignment, I am giving you the two passages to compare; next year, you will have to select the passage(s) on your own.…

    • 1140 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Language shapes the way how you think in many ways. An example of how language shapes the way you think lies in the book “ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. A quote that explains how language shapes how you think is “Why, Huck, doan de French people talk the same way we does?” “No, Jim; you couldn’t understand a word they said- not a single word.” “ Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?” “ I don’t know; but it’s so. I got some of their jabber out of a book. Spose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy - what would you think?” “ I wouldn’t think nuff’n; I’d take en bust him over de head. Dat is, if he warn’t white. I wouldn’t low no nigger to call me dat.” “Shucks, it aint calling you anything. It’s only saying do you know how to talk French.” “Well den, why couldn’t he say it?” “ Why he is a-saying it. That’s Frenchman’s way of saying it.” This quote relates perfectly to one of Whorf’s theories that state that if a language has no word for a certain concept, then its speakers would not be able to understand this concept. Jim did not understand what Huck meant when he said “polly-voo-frenzy” because he was not familiar with the word and did not know what it meant. Jim thought that the word was offensive before Huck told him what it meant because he had never heard the word before. If Huck had said that to a French man, then he would have simply replied oui, which means yes. The French man would not get angry like Jim did, because he understood the meaning of the…

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Macbeth Symbolism

    • 847 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Shakespeare’s first symbol, that blood is a representation of guilt, murder, and pain. This is clearly made evident by his main character Macbeth. For example in the second scene of the play King Duncan is asking about the famed and glorious Macbeth and his battles with the enemy, Duncan says “What bloody man is that?”(1.2.1). Surely the playwrights decision, to use this words, show how Shakespeare’s intent to symbolize blood as a symbol of pain for the opposing army. Although the opposing army has died, there deaths have given the kingdom in which Duncan rules a sense of “life”, due to the fact there kingdom is safe and away from all danger. This shows how death and life are and never ending cycle. In another occasion similar to this one, Shakespeare has created yet another compelling scene where Macbeth’s counterpart his wife, has made a plan to kill King Duncan but she calls upon supernatural spirits to make her feel nothing when killing someone she says “ make my blood thick;/Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse. In this scene we see how thin blood is considered whole and Lady Macbeth wants to poison her blood, to poison her soul, to make her blood thick to be able to kill without remorse. This shows how Lady Macbeth has “died” and brought to life a new Lady Macbeth that has no remorse or consideration for…

    • 847 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Everyone has a conscience that should be their guide "morality." A conscience is there to tug someone on the shoulder to pull them in the right direction, on what is "right" and what is "wrong." Mark Twain writes a book called "The adventures of Huckleberry Finn" about a delinquent child named Huckleberry Finn that faces challenges throughout the story, deciding what is "right" and "wrong" which makes the character twist and turns at some situations. Mark Twain points out how the story is full of hypocrisy with his characters representing how corrupt things are in the book, by using Huck, some minor characters, and Pap…

    • 848 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Huckleberry Finn Context

    • 1013 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in the town of Florida, Missouri, in 1835. When he was four years old, his family moved to Hannibal, a town on the Mississippi River much like the towns depicted in his two most famous novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).…

    • 1013 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck’s relationship with Jim becomes increasingly close and respected as these chapters unwind. In the beginning of the book, both Huck and Jim are only briefly acquitted due to Jim working for Miss Watson as a slave, who happens to be Huck’s legal guardian at the time. Even though both characters live under the same roof, neither of them pay much attention to one another due to the fact that slaves in the 1800s, degraded by the term “niggers”, would not be accepted into the white community as anything more. However, despite Huck barely knowing him, he had noticed “Miss Watson’s big nigger, named Jim”(pg. 6) was physically large, very superstitious but capable of interpreting signs that could provide useful information. We know this since Huck mentions that “Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here again, for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know, was, what he was going to do, and was he going to stay?”.…

    • 729 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Considering an author alongside a text leads to the reader seeking the author’s motivations and influences rather than seeking their own understanding…

    • 636 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays