Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Huck Discussion XXXVI-XXXIX

Mark Twain shows his disliking of Romanticism through Tom. Tom bases all of his stories and plans off of fiction from books the situations he describes wouldn’t and or couldn’t happen in actual situations, which is much like the way many romantic novels are laid out. They fill you heads with ideas that most likely wont occur and they just put false ideas in your head. Huck desperately wants to be like Tom and have a bunch of great stories and be adventurous like Tom, when in reality he is the one who can tell stories about his actual adventures that he has experienced first hand and not read in a book.

The Plan for trying to free Jim is actually quite simple but Tom makes sure to come up with some huge elaborate plan just to make it sound more exciting, even though it didn’t make hardly any sense and was unrealistic. The easiest solutions was just for Jim to escape and then have Tom and Huck pick him up, but since Tom had this crazy plan about digging under the cabin with case-knives Jim decided to wait and execute Tom’s plan. This was dangerous because the longer he had to spend being a slave the longer his life and well-being was at steak. And after waiting all the time and doing all the things Tom had requested such as taming reptiles, tending a flower with his tears. In the mean time, Tom had to write these letters to his aunt and uncle about how a gang of bandits from Indian Country were planning to steal there runaway slave, and because of all these complications Tom ends up getting shot in the leg. This really lays out the foolishness in his plan and in romanticism all together. Making things complicated just so they can be more complex and possibly exciting doesn’t help anything. It’s best if things are just done realistically and efficiently. Jim and Huck manage to get through tough situations just fine without all the extra details and complications that Tom likes to bring in situations, they use their street smarts, which is something Tom Sawyer lacks.

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