Huck Finn #2: p.28-46

"I got to thinking that [...] I could fix up some way to keep pap and the widow from trying to follow me" (41).

Pap can be looked upon as bad and the widow can be looked upon as good. Huck has chosen to not head toward good or bad, but creating his own path. He wants to live his life away from all its hardship, away from rules, away from reality. Tom Sawyer spoke of stories that thrived on one's imagination, and this may be what Huck is looking for on his trip down the river. Huck did not love his father, and he was tired of the widow's teaching him manners. Maybe this was a chance to see if Tom's stories were true. But Huck has to remember that Jim said to stay away from the water, maybe foreshadowing an event that is to occur later. 

"They call this a govment [sic]! [..] Here's the law a-standing ready to take a man's son away from him- [...] just as that man has got that son raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin' [sic] for him and give him a rest [...]. And they call that govment!" (36).

Pap's rants about education and literacy contradict his words. In this quotation, he is unbelievably ignorant. He is saying his child is basically his property and does not want anyone from taking what is his. He wants to use Huck so he can keep drinking while Huck works to pay for his booze. A democracy sees freedom for all people, something Pap does not understand with his illiterate and uneducated mind. He has no right to accuse the government for wrongdoing. This goes along with the black man who is richer than him that is allowed to vote. Pap can not understand how the government can let a black man vote and thinks that he should be a slave. Maybe Pap needs to learn that a black man is just another man.

Vocabulary:

"I'll take some o' those frills out o' you" (29).

frills- n.  an unnecessary extra feature or embellishment

"I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too" (30).

pungle- v. to make a payment or contribution (usually money)