Adventures of Huck Finn Essays - English-language Films, Free Essays

Adventures of Huck Finn Essays - English-language Films, Free Essays Adventures of Huck Finn title = Adventures of Huck Finn American Heritage Pd 5 & 6 The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel about a young boys coming of age in the Missouri of the mid-1800s. The main character, Huckleberry Finn, spends much time in the novel floating down the Mississippi River on a raft with a runaway slave named Jim. Before he does so, however, Huck spends some time in the fictional town of St. Petersburg where a number of people attempt to influence him. Before the novel begins, Huck Finn has led a life of absolute freedom. His drunken and often missing father has never paid much attention to him; his mother is dead and so, when the novel begins, Huck is not used to following any rules. The books opening finds Huck living with the Widow Douglas and her sister, Miss Watson. Both women are fairly old and are really somewhat incapable of raising a rebellious boy like Huck Finn. Nevertheless, they attempt to make Huck into what they believe will be a better boy. Specifically, they attempt, as Huck says, to "sivilize" him. This process includes making Huck go to school, teaching him various religious facts, and making him act in a way that the women find socially acceptable. Huck, who has never had to follow many rules in his life, finds the demands the women place upon him constraining and the life with them lonely. As a result, soon after he first moves in with them, he runs away. He soon comes back, but, even though he becomes somewhat comfortable with his new life as the months go by, Huck never really enjoys the life of manners, religion, and education that the Widow and her sister impose upon him. Huck believes he will find some freedom with Tom Sawyer. Tom is a boy of Hucks age who promises Huck and other boys of the town a life of adventure. Huck is eager to join Tom Sawyers Gang because he feels that doing so will allow him to escape the somewhat boring life he leads with the Widow Douglas. Unfortunately, such an escape does not occur. Tom Sawyer promises muchrobbing stages, murdering and ransoming people, kidnaping beautiful womenbut none of this comes to pass. Huck finds out too late that Toms adventures are imaginary: that raiding a caravan of "A-rabs" really means terrorizing young children on a Sunday school picnic, that stolen "joolry" is nothing more than turnips or rocks. Huck is disappointed that the adventures Tom promises are not real and so, along with the other members, he resigns from the gang. Another person who tries to get Huckleberry Finn to change is Pap, Hucks father. Pap is one of the most astonishing figures in all of American literature as he is completely antisocial and wishes to undo all of the civilizing effects that the Widow and Miss Watson have attempted to instill in Huck. Pap is a mess: he is unshaven; his hair is uncut and hangs like vines in front of his face; his skin, Huck says, is white like a fishs belly or like a tree toads. Paps savage appearance reflects his feelings as he demands that Huck quit school, stop reading, and avoid church. Huck is able to stay away from Pap for a while, but Pap kidnaps Huck three or four months after Huck starts to live with the Widow and takes him to a lonely cabin deep in the Missouri woods. Here, Huck enjoys, once again, the freedom that he had prior to the beginning of the book. He can smoke, "laze around," swear, and, in general, do what he wants to do. However, as he did with the Widow and with Tom, Huck begins to become dissatisfied with this life. Pap is "too handy with the hickory" and Huck soon realizes that he will have to escape from the cabin if he wishes to remain alive. As a result of his concern, Huck makes it appear as if he is killed in the cabin while Pap is away, and leaves to go to a remote island in the Mississippi River, Jacksons Island. It is after he leaves his fathers cabin that Huck joins yet another important influence in his life: Miss Watsons slave, Jim. Prior to Hucks leaving, Jim has been a minor character in the novelhe has been shown being fooled by Tom Sawyer and telling Hucks fortune. Huck finds Jim on Jacksons Island because the slave has run awayhe has overheard a conversation

Quotes About What a 50th Birthday Means

Quotes About What a 50th Birthday Means If you are turning fifty, my hearty congratulations on the golden jubilee celebrations! Let the wine pour and the music roll, as you watch your life unfurl. Now that you are free of several responsibilities, you can sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Here are some wonderful 50th birthday quotes to keep you rocking for the next decade! Victor Hugo: Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.TS Eliot: The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.Sophie Tucker: From birth to age eighteen, a girl needs good parents. From eighteen to thirty-five, she needs good looks. From thirty-five to fifty-five, she needs a good personality. From fifty-five on she needs good cash.Coco Chanel: Nature gives you the face you have at twenty, but its up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.Elizabeth Cady Stanton: The heyday of womans life is the shady side of fifty!Bob Geldof: I do think I feel it but you dont think you are cause at a certain time you are no age but you dont think you are anything. You feel the life you have lived. I feel that. Its been a long fifty years.Dawn Wells: Just because a woman is over fifty does not mean she no longer has anything to offer. If anything, we have so much more to offer! We have lived life, we get better with age. I do my best work now in my 60s. Sure, I could retire; but what would I do? Play Bingo? I think not! Cindy Crawford: The face you have at age twenty-five is the face God gave you, but the face you have after fifty is the face you earned.