Dialectic Journal #3

Chapter 31-32
Chapter 31 Pg. 284:" I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: "All right, then, I'll go to hell."

Comments and Questions

In this moment of moral courage Huck decides to do the right thing which is considered wrong in his society. He would rather go to hell than betray his friend. Huck feels in his heart that this is the right thing to do no matter what society dictates. This is mentality of reform and the mindset the nation was slowly coming to approaching the abolition of slavery.

Chapter 33-34
Chapter 33 Pg. 306: "Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn't ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another."

Comments and Questions
Huck feels sorry for the Duke and King despite the way they mistreated him because they were tarred and feathered. This was a cruel punishment that was used in feudal Europe in the early modern period and the early American frontier. This is a good glimpse into Huck's character. Despite his personal experience with the Duke and King, he looks at all things very objectively and does not like to see anyone treated immorally.

Chapter 35-36
Chapter 35 Pg. 318: "No, it wouldn't do -- there ain't necessity enough for it." "For what?" I says. "Why, to saw Jim's leg off," he says.

Comments and Questions
Huck and Tom discussed how to free Jim when Tom suggests taking Jim's legs off. Tom insists on doing things dramatically, the way they are done in the books he reads. He seeks to make a fairly simple process into a difficult task that could have ended up threatening Jim's life. Tom is very self-centered and the polar opposite of Huck who is a good and moral human being.

Chapter 37-38
Chapter 38 Pg: 345 "I know how to fix it. We got to have a rock for the coat of arms and mournful inscriptions, and we can kill two birds with that same rock. There's a gaudy big grindstone down at the mill, and we'll smouch it, and carve the things on it, and file out the pens and the saw on it, too."

Comments and Questions
Tom's foolish schemes are meant to make Jim look like a hero. Though Tom knows that Jim is already free, he continues to come up with these tactics for his own amusement.

Chapter 39-40
Chapter 40 Pg: 365 "I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he'd say what he did say - so it was all right, now, and I told Tom I was agoing for a doctor."

Comments and questions
Though Huck speaks about color, he does not see color when looks at a person. He sees them for what they are inside. Because in his society being white was related to being morally aright he says that Jim was "white inside." Tom sees that Jim puts Tom's needs first when he is shot and treats him like a brother. In this Tom sees Jim's upright character and confers that by saying he is white - or moral- on the inside, no matter what his skin color shows.

Chapter 41-43
Chapter 43 Pg: 388 "I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before."

Comments and Questions
Throughout the book, Huck has been ahead of his time in the way he sees the world. Again in these last sentences he says that he must be the one to light the way for the rest. Twain relates that Huck is the beacon of light that the generations after will follow and a model of the mentality that will shape the upcoming years. The book ends with these lines of Huck again being adopted and civilized, just as his view of the world will soon be adopted by the nation and go from being a wild notion, to being the civilized way.