The Power of Emotion

I would like to focus on a passage from the beginning of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” for this blog- occurring in chapter 1 soon after Huck moves in with Miss Watson and The Widow and they spend the day trying to “sivilize him.” After a long day of this Huck says, “I went up to my room with a piece of candle and put it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn’t no use. I felt so lonesome I almost wished I was dead” (Twain 11). I think this may be the first moment in the novel, although there are many more, which really portrays a deeper hurt and sadness in Huckleberry Finn- and that that part of him, although it is below the surface, is there. In this instance he is in a house full of people but it seems as though there is no one in the house who really understands him and this makes him feel lonely. The loneliness resulting in him “wishing he was dead” could also be a portraying how the idea of “sivilization” makes him feel sad and lonely. Whatever the case may be, we can see that Huck holds deep sorrow inside himself.

                Huck also compares his feelings of loneliness and the idea of death, and mourning to natural processes, “the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead…and the wind was trying to whisper something to me and I couldn’t make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me” (Twain 11). The leaves rustling becomes a mournful sound and the owls “who-who” becomes a cry of death, the wind even whispers in his ear. These are all very heavy descriptions and I wonder if it is possible that these references to death and nature are somewhat foreshadowing in this instance, could be a stretch but the concept of “nature” is a huge theme through the novel and at many points both Huck and Jim are vulnerable to the natural world and do in fact witness much death and loss on their journey.

                This passage also makes me wonder about Huck as the role of the “narrator” and the fact that he included such a verse in the retelling of his tale- for this type of talk about death and loneliness is a reoccurring theme throughout. For me, it brings up questions about how deliberate it was, on Huck’s part, that these passages were included. I think it’s safe to say that Twain very deliberately added them but what then was he trying to say about Huck as a narrator? When Huck is recounting his story is he sensitive to the deeper meaning behind all the loneliness and death he experiences and is that why they are included? Has he made sense of what all these things mean for him or is he still speaking as the naïve Huck who is merely depicting his feelings at the time because that is what he remembers? I also wonder what Twain is then trying to say about the fact that many humans do feel this way at different points in their lives- I think there is a possibility that Twain is trying to show the importance of feeling those feelings, the weight they hold, and how, in many ways they help a person grow, as we see with Huck.

Works Cited:

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Penguin, 2003. Print