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The river was a mile wide there, and it always looks pretty on a summer morning—so I was having a good enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders if I only had a bite to eat.
one could argue Finn is now floating the river Styx after his father murdered him. while I don't think this is what's actually happening, it does present an alternative scenario.
So there ain’t no doubt but there is something in that thing—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.
blessed with loaves, and yet his abusive father taught him to fish. Huck might have something in common with Jesus...
“I reck’n I could eat a hoss. I think I could. How long you ben on de islan’?” “Since the night I got killed.”
theyre both in a form of purgatory. the abused former slave and boy with a drunken father. both let down by the nation that father loathes.
He said it was death. He said his father laid mighty sick once, and some of them catched a bird, and his old granny said his father would die, and he did.
Jim observes some broad form of obeah religion.
“Hold on, Parker,” says the other man, “here’s a twenty to put on the board for me. Good-bye, boy; you do as Mr. Parker told you, and you’ll be all right.” “That’s so, my boy—good-bye, good-bye. If you see any runaway niggers you get help and nab them, and you can make some money by it.”
a whole lot going on here aside from the obvious moral comparison. they are happy to help Huck but are on the lookout for runaway slaves. Twain doing even more to show the difference in treatment here. it's also pay for the ferrymen as they expect for Huck a sure death.
“Doan’ le’s talk about it, Huck. Po’ niggers can’t have no luck. I awluz ‘spected dat rattlesnake-skin warn’t done wid its work.” “I wish I’d never seen that snake-skin, Jim—I do wish I’d never laid eyes on it.”
this snakeskin is white complicity in Jim's oppression.
The old gentleman owned a lot of farms and over a hundred niggers. Sometimes a stack of people would come there, horseback, from ten or fifteen mile around, and stay five or six days, and have such junketings round about and on the river, and dances and picnics in the woods daytimes, and balls at the house nights. These people was mostly kinfolks of the family. The men brought their guns with them. It was a handsome lot of quality, I tell you.
this is the other side of slavery, from the perspective of the beneficiaries
If you notice, most folks don’t go to church only when they’ve got to; but a hog is different.
guilty people spend a lot of time at church.
I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper. It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. 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”—and tore it up.
Christian justification for slavery requires the conviction of condemnation to undermine it.
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.
John Brown logic. a systemic critique. if morality is wrong, then being wrong is actually right.
went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come; for I’d noticed that Providence always did put the right words in my mouth if I left it alone.
the duality of what man says God says, versus what God actually says.
“I know what you’ll say. You’ll say it’s dirty, low-down business; but what if it is? I’m low down; and I’m a-going to steal him, and I want you keep mum and not let on. Will you?” His eye lit up, and he says: “I’ll help you steal him!”
Synthesis. the younger generation are one in the same, their "backwards morality" a sign of grace sent by Providence.
“Why, there’s somebody come! I wonder who ‘tis? Why, I do believe it’s a stranger. Jimmy” (that’s one of the children) “run and tell Lize to put on another plate for dinner.”
fucking brilliant. Jimmy. two letters and he's a completely different person. also his skin color...
