American Literature books summary

American Literature books summary

We are lucky to present you

Short Summaries of the Books

You Have to Read in the course of

the English Literature by Stulov

Thursday, April 3 2002

Contents

1. AN OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT FROM THE 17TH TO THE 20TH CENTURIES 2

2. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 5

3. ALL THE KING’S MEN 13

4. CATCH-22 22

5. Catcher in the Rye 31

6. FAREWELL TO ARMS 35

7. Grapes of Wrath 41

8. Great Gatsby 46

9. Long Day's Journey Into the Night 49

10. Moby Dick 53

11. Scarlet Letter 63

12. Slaughterhouse Five 67

13. Sound and the Fury 73

14. Streetcar Named ”Desire” 87

AN OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT FROM THE 17TH TO THE 20TH CENTURIES

Like other national literatures, American literature was shaped by the

history of the country that produced it. For almost a century and a half,

America was merely a group of colonies scattered along the eastern seaboard

of the North American continent--colonies from which a few hardy souls

tentatively ventured westward. After a successful rebellion against the

motherland, America became the United States, a nation. By the end of the

19th century this nation extended southward to the Gulf of Mexico,

northward to the 49th parallel, and westward to the Pacific. By the end of

the 19th century, too, it had taken its place among the powers of the world-

-its fortunes so interrelated with those of other nations that inevitably

it became involved in two world wars and, following these conflicts, with

the problems of Europe and East Asia. Meanwhile, the rise of science and

industry, as well as changes in ways of thinking and feeling, wrought many

modifications in people's lives. All these factors in the development of

the United States molded the literature of the country.

The 17th century

American literature at first was naturally a colonial literature, by

authors who were Englishmen and who thought and wrote as such. John Smith,

a soldier of fortune, is credited with initiating American literature. His

chief books included A True Relation of . . . Virginia . . . (1608) and The

generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624).

Although these volumes often glorified their author, they were avowedly

written to explain colonizing opportunities to Englishmen. In time, each

colony was similarly described: Daniel Denton's Brief Description of New

York (1670), William Penn's Brief Account of the Province of Pennsylvania

(1682), and Thomas Ashe's Carolina (1682) were only a few of many works

praising America as a land of economic promise.Such writers acknowledged

British allegiance, but others stressed the differences of opinion that

spurred the colonists to leave their homeland. More important, they argued

questions of government involving the relationship between church and

state. The attitude that most authors attacked was jauntily set forth by

Nathaniel Ward of Massachusetts Bay in The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in

America (1647). Ward amusingly defended the status quo and railed at

colonists who sponsored newfangled notions. A variety of counterarguments

to such a conservative view were published. John Winthrop's Journal

(written 1630-49) told sympathetically of the attempt of Massachusetts Bay

Colony to form a theocracy--a state with God at its head and with its laws

based upon the Bible. Later defenders of the theocratic ideal were Increase

Mather and his son Cotton. William Bradford's History of Plymouth

Plantation (through 1646) showed how his pilgrim Separatists broke

completely with Anglicanism. Even more radical than Bradford was Roger

Williams, who, in a series of controversial pamphlets, advocated not only

the separation of church and state but also the vesting of power in the

people and the tolerance of different religious beliefs.The utilitarian

writings of the 17th century included biographies, treatises, accounts of

voyages, and sermons. There were few achievements in drama or fiction,

since there was a widespread prejudice against these forms. Bad but popular

poetry appeared in the Bay Psalm Book of 1640 and in Michael Wigglesworth's

summary in doggerel verse of Calvinistic belief, The Day of Doom (1662).

There was some poetry, at least, of a higher order. Anne Bradstreet of

Massachusetts wrote some lyrics published in The Tenth Muse (1650), which

movingly conveyed her feelings concerning religion and her family. Ranked

still higher by modern critics is a poet whose works were not discovered

and published until 1939: Edward Taylor, an English-born minister and

physician who lived in Boston and Westfield, Massachusetts. Less touched by

gloom than the typical Puritan, Taylor wrote lyrics that showed his delight

in Christian belief and experience.All 17th-century American writings were

in the manner of British writings of the same period. John Smith wrote in

the tradition of geographic literature, Bradford echoed the cadences of the

King James Bible, while the Mathers and Roger Williams wrote bejeweled

prose typical of the day. Anne Bradstreet's poetic style derived from a

long line of British poets, including Spenser and Sidney, while Taylor was

in the tradition of such Metaphysical poets as George Herbert and John

Donne. Both the content and form of the literature of this first century in

America were thus markedly English.

The 18th century

In America in the early years of the 18th century, some writers, such

as Cotton Mather, carried on the older traditions. His huge history and

biography of Puritan New England, Magnalia Christi Americana, in 1702, and

his vigorous Manuductio ad Ministerium, or introduction to the ministry, in

1726, were defenses of ancient Puritan convictions. Jonathan Edwards,

initiator of the Great Awakening, a religious revival that stirred the

eastern seacoast for many years, eloquently defended his burning belief in

Calvinistic doctrine--of the concept that man, born totally depraved, could

attain virtue and salvation only through God's grace--in his powerful

sermons and most notably in the philosophical treatise Freedom of Will

(1754). He supported his claims by relating them to a complex metaphysical

system and by reasoning brilliantly in clear and often beautiful prose.But

Mather and Edwards were defending a doomed cause. Liberal New England

ministers such as John Wise and Jonathan Mayhew moved toward a less rigid

religion. Samuel Sewall heralded other changes in his amusing Diary,

covering the years 1673-1729. Though sincerely religious, he showed in

daily records how commercial life in New England replaced rigid Puritanism

with more worldly attitudes. The Journal of Mme Sara Knight comically

detailed a journey that lady took to New York in 1704. She wrote vividly of

what she saw and commented upon it from the standpoint of an orthodox

believer, but a quality of levity in her witty writings showed that she was

much less fervent than the Pilgrim founders had been. In the South, William

Byrd of Virginia, an aristocratic plantation owner, contrasted sharply with

gloomier predecessors. His record of a surveying trip in 1728, The History

of the Dividing Line, and his account of a visit to his frontier properties

in 1733, A Journey to the Land of Eden, were his chief works. Years in

England, on the Continent, and among the gentry of the South had created

gaiety and grace of expression, and, although a devout Anglican, Byrd was

as playful as the Restoration wits whose works he clearly admired.The

wrench of the American Revolution emphasized differences that had been

growing between American and British political concepts. As the colonists

moved to the belief that rebellion was inevitable, fought the bitter war,

and worked to found the new nation's government, they were influenced by a

number of very effective political writers, such as Samuel Adams and John

Dickinson, both of whom favoured the colonists, and Loyalist Joseph

Galloway. But two figures loomed above these--Benjamin Franklin and Thomas

Paine.Franklin, born in 1706, had started to publish his writings in his

brother's newspaper, the New England Courant, as early as 1722. This

newspaper championed the cause of the "Leather Apron" man and the farmer

and appealed by using easily understood language and practical arguments.

The idea that common sense was a good guide was clear in both the popular

Poor Richard's almanac, which Franklin edited between 1732 and 1757 and

filled with prudent and witty aphorisms purportedly written by uneducated

but experienced Richard Saunders, and in the author's Autobiography,

written between 1771 and 1788, a record of his rise from humble

circumstances that offered worldly wise suggestions for future

success.Franklin's self-attained culture, deep and wide, gave substance and

skill to varied articles, pamphlets, and reports that he wrote concerning

the dispute with Great Britain, many of them extremely effective in stating

and shaping the colonists' cause.Thomas Paine went from his native England

to Philadelphia and became a magazine editor and then, about 14 months

later, the most effective propagandist for the colonial cause. His pamphlet

"Common Sense" (January 1776) did much to influence the colonists to

declare their independence. "The American Crisis" papers (December 1776-

December 1783) spurred Americans to fight on through the blackest years of

the war. Based upon Paine's simple deistic beliefs, they showed the

conflict as a stirring melodrama with the angelic colonists against the

forces of evil. Such white and black picturings were highly effective

propaganda. Another reason for Paine's success was his poetic fervour,

which found expression in impassioned words and phrases long to be

remembered and quoted.

The 19th century

Early 19th-century literature

After the American Revolution, and increasingly after the War of 1812,

American writers were exhorted to produce a literature that was truly

native. As if in response, four authors of very respectable stature

appeared. William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper,

and Edgar Allan Poe initiated a great half century of literary

development.Bryant, a New Englander by birth, attracted attention in his

23rd year when the first version of his poem "Thanatopsis" (1817) appeared.

This, as well as some later poems, was written under the influence of

English 18th-century poets. Still later, however, under the influence of

Wordsworth and other Romantics, he wrote nature lyrics that vividly

represented the New England scene. Turning to journalism, he had a long

career as a fighting liberal editor of The Evening Post. He himself was

overshadowed, in renown at least, by a native-born New Yorker, Washington

Irving.Irving, youngest member of a prosperous merchant family, joined with

ebullient young men of the town in producing the Salmagundi papers (1807-

08), which took off the foibles of Manhattan's citizenry. This was followed

by A History of New York (1809), by "Diedrich Knickerbocker," a burlesque

history that mocked pedantic scholarship and sniped at the old Dutch

families. Irving's models in these works were obviously Neoclassical

English satirists, from whom he had learned to write in a polished, bright

style. Later, having met Sir Walter Scott and having become acquainted with

imaginative German literature, he introduced a new Romantic note in The

Sketch Book (1819-20), Bracebridge Hall (1822), and other works. He was the

first American writer to win the ungrudging (if somewhat surprised) respect

of British critics.James Fenimore Cooper won even wider fame. Following the

pattern of Sir Walter Scott's "Waverley" novels, he did his best work in

the "Leatherstocking" tales (1823-41), a five-volume series celebrating the

career of a great frontiersman named Natty Bumppo. His skill in weaving

history into inventive plots and in characterizing his compatriots brought

him acclaim not only in America and England but on the continent of Europe

as well.Edgar Allan Poe, reared in the South, lived and worked as an author

and editor in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Richmond, and New York City. His

work was shaped largely by analytical skill that showed clearly in his role

as an editor: time after time he gauged the taste of readers so accurately

that circulation figures of magazines under his direction soared

impressively. It showed itself in his critical essays, wherein he lucidly

explained and logically applied his criteria. His gothic tales of terror

were written in accordance with his findings when he studied the most

popular magazines of the day. His masterpieces of terror--"The Fall of the

House of Usher" (1839), "The Masque of the Red Death" (1842), "The Cask of

Amontillado" (1846), and others--were written according to a carefully

worked out psychological method. So were his detective stories, such as

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841), which historians credited as the

first of the genre. As a poet, he achieved fame with "The Raven" (1845).

His work, especially his critical writings and carefully crafted poems, had

perhaps a greater influence in France, where they were translated by

Charles Baudelaire, than in his own country.Two Southern novelists were

also outstanding in the earlier part of the century: John Pendleton Kennedy

and William Gilmore Simms. In Swallow Barn (1832), Kennedy wrote

delightfully of life on the plantations. Simms's forte was the writing of

historical novels like those of Scott and Cooper, which treated the history

of the frontier and his native South Carolina. The Yemassee (1835) and

Revolutionary romances show him at his best.

The 20th century

Writing from 1914 to 1945

Important movements in drama, poetry, fiction, and criticism took form

in the years before, during, and after World War I. The eventful period

that followed the war left its imprint upon books of all kinds. Literary

forms of the period were extraordinarily varied, and in drama, poetry, and

fiction leading authors tended toward radical technical

experiments.Experiments in dramaAlthough drama had not been a major art

form in the 19th century, no type of writing was more experimental than a

new drama that arose in rebellion against the glib commercial stage. In the

early years of the 20th century, Americans traveling in Europe encountered

a vital, flourishing theatre; returning home, some of them became active in

founding the Little Theatre movement throughout the country. Freed from

commercial limitations, playwrights experimented with dramatic forms and

methods of production, and in time producers, actors, and dramatists

appeared who had been trained in college classrooms and community

playhouses. Some Little Theatre groups became commercial producers--for

example, the Washington Square Players, founded in 1915, which became the

Theatre Guild (first production in 1919). The resulting drama was marked by

a spirit of innovation and by a new seriousness and maturity.Eugene

O'Neill, the most admired dramatist of the period, was a product of this

movement. He worked with the Provincetown Players before his plays were

commercially produced. His dramas were remarkable for their range. Beyond

the Horizon (first performed 1920), Anna Christie (1921), Desire Under the

Elms (1924), and The Iceman Cometh (1946) were naturalistic works, while

The Emperor Jones (1920) and The Hairy Ape (1922) made use of the

Expressionistic techniques developed in German drama in the period 1914-24.

He also employed a stream-of-consciousness form in Strange Interlude (1928)

and produced a work that combined myth, family drama, and psychological

analysis in Mourning Becomes Electra (1931).No other dramatist was as

generally praised as O'Neill, but many others wrote plays that reflected

the growth of a serious and varied drama, including Maxwell Anderson, whose

verse dramas have dated badly, and Robert E. Sherwood, a Broadway

professional who wrote both comedy (Reunion in Vienna [1931]) and tragedy

(There Shall Be No Night [1940]). Marc Connelly wrote touching fantasy in a

Negro folk biblical play, The Green Pastures (1930). Like O'Neill, Elmer

Rice made use of both Expressionistic techniques (The Adding Machine

[1923]) and naturalism (Street Scene [1929]). Lillian Hellman wrote

powerful, well-crafted melodramas in The Children's Hour (1934) and The

Little Foxes (1939). Radical theatre experiments included Marc Blitzstein's

savagely satiric musical The Cradle Will Rock (1937) and the work of Orson

Welles and John Houseman for the government-sponsored Works Progress

Administration (WPA) Federal Theatre Project. The premier radical theatre

of the decade was the Group Theatre (1931-41) under Harold Clurman and Lee

Strasberg, which became best known for presenting the work of Clifford

Odets. In Waiting for Lefty (1935), a stirring plea for labour unionism,

Odets roused the audience to an intense pitch of fervour, and in Awake and

Sing (1935), perhaps the best play of the decade, he created a lyrical work

of family conflict and youthful yearning. Other important plays by Odets

for the Group Theatre were Paradise Lost (1935), Golden Boy (1937), and

Rocket to the Moon (1938). Thornton Wilder used stylized settings and

poetic dialogue in Our Town (1938) and turned to fantasy in The Skin of Our

Teeth (1942). William Saroyan shifted his lighthearted, anarchic vision

from fiction to drama with My Heart's in the Highlands and The Time of Your

Life (both 1939).

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Context

Samuel Clemens was born in Missouri in 1835. He grew up in the town of

Hannibal, Missouri, which would become the model for St. Petersburg, the

fictional town where Huckleberry Finn begins. Missouri was a "slave state"

during this period, and Clemens' family owned a few slaves. In Missouri,

most slaves worked as domestic servants, rather than on the large

agricultural plantations that most slaves elsewhere in the United States

experienced. This domestic slavery is what Twain generally describes in

Huckleberry Finn, even when the action occurs in the deep South. The

institution of slavery figures prominently in the novel and is important in

developing both the theme and the two most important characters, Huck and

Jim.

Twain received a brief formal education, before going to work as an

apprentice in a print shop. He would later find work on a steamboat on the

Mississippi River. Twain developed a lasting afiection for the Mississippi

and life on a steamboat, and would immortalize both in Life on the

Mississippi (1883), and in certain scenes of Tom Sawyer (1876), and

Huckleberry Finn (1885). He took his pseudonym, "Mark Twain," from the call

a steamboat worker would make when the ship reached a (safe) depth of two

fathoms. Twain would go on to work as a journalist in San Francisco and

Nevada in the 1860s. He soon discovered his talent as a humorist, and by

1865 his humorous stories were attracting national attention.

In 1870, Twain married Olivia Langdon of New York State. The family

moved to Hartford, Connecticut, to a large, ornate house paid for with the

royalties from Twain's successful literary adventures. At Hartford and

during stays with Olivia's family in New York State, Twain wrote The Gilded

Age, co-authored with Charles Dudley Warner in 1873 and The Prince and the

Pauper (1882), as well as the two books already mentioned. Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn was finally published in 1885. Twain had begun the book

years earlier, but the writing was done in spurts of inspiration

interrupted by long periods during which the manuscript sat in the author's

desk. Despite the economic crisis that plagued the United States then, the

book became a huge popular and financial success. It would become a classic

of American literature and receive acclaim around the world{today it has

been published in at least twenty-seven languages.

Still, at the time of publication, the author was bothered by the many

bad reviews it received in the national press. The book was principally

attacked for its alleged indecency. After the 1950s, the chief attacks on

the book would be against its alleged racism or racial bigotry. For various

reasons, the book frequently has been banned from US schools and children's

libraries, though it was never really intended as a children's book.

Nonetheless, the book has been widely read ever since its first publication

well over a century ago, an exception to Twain's definition of a classic as

"a book which people praise and don't read."

Characters

Huckleberry Finn { The protagonist and narrator of the novel. Huck is

the thirteen or fourteen year-old son of the local drunk in the town of St.

Petersburg, Missouri, at the start of the novel. He is kidnapped by his

father, Pap, from the "sivilizing" in uence of the Widow Douglas and Miss

Watson, and then fakes his own death to escape. He meets Jim on Jackson's

Island. The rest of the novel is largely motivated by two conflicts: the

external con ict to achieve Jim's freedom, and the internal con ict within

Huck between his own sense of right and wrong and society's. Huck has a

series of "adventures," making many observations on human nature and the

South as he does. He progressively rejects the values of the dominant

society and matures morally as he does. Jim { A slave who escaped from Miss

Watson after she considered selling him down river. He encounters Huck on

Jackson's Island, and the two become friends and spend most of the rest of

the novel together. Jim deeply grieves his separation from his wife and two

children and dreams of getting them back. He is an intensely human

character, perhaps the novel's most complex. Through his example, Huck

learns to appreciate the humanity of black people, overcoming his society's

bigotry and making a break with its moral code. Twain also uses him to

demonstrate racial equality. But Jim himself remains somewhat enigmatic; he

seems both comrade and father figure to Huck, though Huck, the youthful

narrator, may not be able to thoroughly evaluate his friend, and so the

reader has to suppose some of his qualities.

The Duke and Dauphin { These two criminals appear for much of the

novel. Their real names are never given, but the younger man, about thirty

years old, claims to be the Duke of Bridgewater, and is called both "the

Duke" and "Bridgewater" in the novel, though for the sake of clarity, he is

only called "the Duke" here. The much older man claims to be the son of

Louis XVI, the executed French king. "Dauphin" was the title given to heirs

to the French throne. He is mostly called "the king" in the novel (since

his father is dead, he would be the rightful king), though he is called

"the Dauphin" in this study guide since the name is more distinctive. The

two show themselves to be truly bad when they separate a slave family at

the Wilks household, and later sell Jim.

Tom Sawyer { Huck's friend, and the protagonist of Tom Sawyer, the

novel for which Huckleberry Finn is ostensibly the sequel. He is in many

ways Huck's foil, given to exotic plans and romantic adventure literature,

while Huck is more down-to-earth. He also turns out to be profoundly

selfish.

On the whole, Tom is identified with the "civilzation" from which Huck

is alienated. Other characters, in order of appearance Widow Douglas and

Miss Watson { Two wealthy sisters who live together in a large house in St.

Petersburg. Miss Watson is the older sister, gaunt and severe-looking. She

also adheres the strongest to the hypocritical religious and ethical values

of the dominant society. Widow Douglas, meanwhile, is somewhat gentler in

her beliefs and has more patience with the mischievous Huckleberry. She

adopted Huck at the end of the last novel, Tom Sawyer, and he is in her

care at the start of Huckleberry Finn. When Miss Watson considers selling

Jim down to New Orleans, away from his wife and children and deep into the

plantation system, Jim escapes. She eventually repents, making provision in

her will for Jim to be freed, and dies two months before the novel ends.

Pap { Huckleberry's father and the town drunk and ne'er- do-well. When

he appears at the beginning of the novel, he is a human wreck, his skin a

disgusting ghost-like white, and his clothes hopelessly tattered. Like

Huck, he is a member of the least privileged class of whites, and is

illiterate. He is angry that his son is getting an education. He wants to

get hold of Huck's money, presumably to spend it on alcohol. He kidnaps

Huck and holds him deep in the woods. When Huck fakes his own murder, Pap

is nearly lynched when suspicions turn his way. But he escapes, and Jim

eventually finds his dead body on an abandoned houseboat.

Judge Thatcher { Judge Thatcher is in charge of safeguarding the money

Huck and Tom won at the end of Tom Sawyer. When Huck discovers his father

has come to town, he wisely signs his fortune over to the Judge. Judge

Thatcher has a daughter, Becky, whom Huck calls "Bessie."

Aunt Polly { Tom Sawyer's aunt and guardian. She appears at the end of

Huckleberry Finn and properly identifies Huck, who has pretended to be Tom;

and Tom, who has pretended to be his brother, Sid (who never appears in

this novel).

The Grangerfords { The master of the Grangerford clan is

"Colonel"Grangerford, who has a wife. The children are Bob, the oldest,

then Tom, then Charlotte, aged twenty- five, Sophia, twenty, and Buck, the

youngest, about thirteen or fourteen. They also had a deceased daughter,

Emme- line, who made unintentionally humorous, maudlin pictures and poems

for the dead. Huckleberry thinks the Grangerfords are all physically

beautiful. They live on a large estate worked by many slaves. Their house

is decked out in humorously tacky finery that Huckleberry innocently

admires. The Grangerfords are in a feud with the Shepardsons, though no one

can remember the cause of the feud or see any real reason to continue it.

When Sophia runs off with a Shepardson, the feud reignites, and Buck and

another boy are shot. With the Grangerfords and the Shepardsons, Twain

illustrates the bouts of irrational brutality to which the South was prone.

The Wilks Family { The deceased Peter Wilks has three daughters, Mary

Jane, Susan, and Joanne (whom Huck calls "the Harelip"). Mary Jane, the

oldest, takes charge of the sisters' afiairs. She is beautiful and kind-

hearted, but easily swindled by the Duke and Dauphin. Susan is the next

youngest. Joanna possess a cleft palate (a birth defect) and so Huck

somewhat tastelessly refers to her as "the Hare Lip" (another name for

cleft palate). She initially suspects Huck and the Duke and Dauphin, but

eventually falls for the scheme like the others.

The Phelps family { The Phelps family includes Aunt Sally, Uncle Silas

and their children. They also own several slaves. Sally and Silas are

generally kind-hearted, and Silas in particular is a complete innocent. Tom

and Huck are able to continue playing pranks on them for quite some time

before they suspect anything is wrong. Sally, however, displays a chilling

level of bigotry toward blacks, which many of her fellow Southerners likely

share. The town

in which they live also cruelly kills the Duke and Dauphin. With the

Phelps, Twain contrasts the good side of Southern civilization with its bad

side.

Summary

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was finally published in 1885. Twain had

begun the book years earlier, but the writing was done in spurts of

inspiration interrupted by long periods during which the manuscript sat in

the author's desk. Despite the economic crisis that plagued the United

States then, the book became a huge popular and financial success. It would

become a classic of American literature and receive acclaim around the

world{today it has been published in at least twenty-seven languages.

Still, at the time of publication, the author was bothered by the many

bad reviews it received in the national press. The book was principally

attacked for its alleged indecency. After the 1950s, the chief attacks on

the book would be against its alleged racism or racial bigotry. For various

reasons, the book frequently has been banned from US schools and children's

libraries, though it was never really intended as a children's book.

Nonetheless, the book has been widely read ever since its first publication

well over a century ago, an exception to Twain's definition of a classic as

"a book which people praise and don't read."

Chapter 1 Summary

The narrator (later identified as Huckleberry Finn) begins Chapter One

by stating that the reader may know of him from another book, The

Adventures of Tom Sawyer by "Mr. Mark Twain," but it "ain't t no matter" if

you have not. According to Huck, Twain mostly told the truth, with some

"stretchers" thrown in, though everyone{except Tom's Aunt Polly, the widow,

and maybe Mary{lies once in a while. The other book ended with Tom and

Huckleberry finding the gold some robbers had hidden in a cave. They got

six thousand dollars apiece, which Judge Thatcher put in trust, so that

they each got a dollar a day from interest. The Widow Douglas adopted and

tried to "civilise" Huck. But Huck couldn't stand it so he threw on his old

rags and ran away. But he went back when Tom Sawyer told him he could join

his new band of robbers if he would return to the Widow "and be

respectable."

The Widow lamented over her failure with Huck, tried to stufi him into

cramped clothing, and before every meal had to "grumble" over the food

before they could eat it. She tried to teach him about Moses, until Huck

found out he was dead and lost interest. Meanwhile, she would not let him

smoke; typically, she disapproved of it because she had never tried it, but

approved of snufi since she used it herself. Her slim sister who wears

glasses, Miss Watson, tried to give him spelling lessons.

Meanwhile, Huck was going stir-crazy, made especially restless by the

sisters' constant reminders to improve his behavior. When Miss Watson told

him about the "bad place," Hell, he burst out that he would like to go

there, as a change of scenery. Secretly, Huck really does not see the point

in going to "the good place" and resolved then not to bother trying to get

there.

When Huck asked, Miss Watson told him there was no chance Tom Sawyer

would end up in Heaven. Huck was glad "because I wanted him and me to be

together." One night, after Miss Watson's prayer session with him and the

slaves, Huck goes to bed feeling "so lonesome I wished I was dead." He gets

shivers hearing the sounds of nature through his window. Huck accidentally

icks a spider into a candle, and is frightened by the bad omen. Just after

midnight, Huck hears movement below the window, and a "me-yow" sound, that

he responds to with another "me-yow." Climbing out the window onto the

shed, Huck finds Tom Sawyer waiting for him.

Chapters 2-3 Summary

Huck and Tom tiptoe through the garden. Huck trips on a root as he

passes the kitchen. Jim, a "big" slave, hears him from inside. Tom and Huck

crouch down, trying to stay still. But Huck is struck by an uncontrollable

itch, as always happens when he is in a situation, like when he's "with the

quality," where it is bad to scratch. Jim says aloud that he will stay put

until he discovers the source of the sound, but after several minutes falls

asleep. Tom plays a trick on Jim{putting his hat on a tree branch over his

head{and takes candles from the kitchen, over Huck's objections that they

will risk getting caught. Later, Jim will say that some witches ew him

around the state and put the hat above his head as a calling card. He

expands the tale further, becoming a local celebrity among the slaves, who

enjoy witch stories. He wears around his neck the five-cent piece Tom left

for the candles, calling it a charm from the devil with the power to cure

sickness. Jim nearly becomes so stuck-up from his newfound celebrity that

he is unfit to be a servant.

Meanwhile, Tom and Huck meet up with a few other boys, and take a boat

to a large cave. There, Tom declares his new band of robbers, "Tom Sawyer's

Gang." All must sign in blood an oath vowing, among other things, to kill

the family of any member who reveals the gang's secrets. The boys think it

"a real beautiful oath." Tom admits he got part of it from books. The boys

nearly disqualify Huck, who has no family but a drunken father who can

never be found, until Huck offers Miss Watson. Tom says the gang must

capture and ransom people, though nobody knows what "ransom" means.

Tom assumes it means to kill them. But anyway, it must be done since

all the books say so. When one boy cries to go home and threatens to tell

the group's secrets, Tom bribes him with five cents. They agree to meet

again someday, just not Sunday, which would be blasphemous. Huckleberry

makes it back into bed just before dawn.

Miss Watson tries to explain prayer to Huckleberry in Chapter Three.

Huckleberry gives up on it after not getting what he prays for. Miss Watson

calls him a fool, and explains prayer bestows spiritual gifts like sel

essness to help others. Huck cannot see any advantage in this, except for

the others one helps. So he resolves to forget it. Widow Douglas describes

a wonderful God, while Miss Watson's is terrible. Huck concludes there are

two Gods. He would like to belong to Widow Douglas's, if He would take him

– unlikely because of Huck's bad qualities.

Meanwhile, a rumor circulates that Huck's Pap, who has not been seen in

a year, is dead. A corpse was found in the river, thought to be Pap because

of its "ragged" appearance, though the face is unrecognizable. At first

Huck is relieved. His father had been a drunk who beat him when he was

sober, though Huck stayed hidden from him most of the time. Soon, however,

Huck doubts his father's death, and expects to see him again.

After a month in Tom's gang, Huck quit along with the rest of the boys.

There was no point to it, without any robbery or killing, their activities

being all pretend. Once, Tom pretended a caravan of Arabs and Spaniards

were going to encamp nearby with hundreds of camels and elephants. It

turned out to be a Sunday school picnic. Tom explained it really was a

caravan of Arabs and Spaniards - only they were enchanted, like in Don

Quixote. Huckleberry judged Tom's stories of genies to be lies, after

rubbing old lamps and rings with no result.

Chapters 4-6 Summary

In Chapter Four, Huckleberry is gradually adjusting to his new life,

and even making small progress in school. One winter morning, Huck notices

boot tracks in the snow near the house. Within one heel print is the shape

of two nails crossed to ward off the devil. Huck runs to Judge Thatcher,

looking over his shoulder as he does. He sells his fortune to the surprised

Judge for a dollar. That night Huck goes to Jim, who has a magical giant

hairball from an ox's stomach. Huck tells Jim he found Pap's tracks in the

snow and wants to know what his father wants. Jim says the hairball needs

money to talk, and so Huck gives a counterfeit quarter. Jim puts his ear to

the hairball, and relates that Huck's father has two angels, one black and

one white, one bad, one good. It is uncertain which will win out. But Huck

is safe for now. He will have much happiness and much sorrow in his life,

will marry a poor and then a rich woman, and should stay clear of the

water, since that is where he will die. That night, Huck finds Pap waiting

in his bedroom!

Pap's long, greasy, black hair hangs over his face. The nearly fifty-

year-old man's skin is a ghastly, disgusting white. Noticing Huck's

"starchy" clothes, Pap wonders aloud if he thinks himself better than his

father, promising to take him "down a peg." Pap promises to teach Widow

Douglas not to "meddle" and make a boy "put on airs over his own father."

Pap is outraged that Huck has become the first person in his family to

learn to read. He threatens Huck not to go near the school again. He asks

Huck if he is really rich, as he has heard, and calls him a liar when he

says he has no more money.

He takes the dollar Huck got from Judge Thatcher. He leaves to get

whiskey, and the next day, drunk, demands Huck's money from Judge Thatcher.

The Judge and Widow Douglas try to get custody of Huck, but give up after

the new judge in town refuses to separate a father from his son. Pap lands

in jail after a drunken spree. The new judge takes Pap into his home and

tries to reform him. Pap tearfully repents his ways but soon gets drunk

again. The new judge decides Pap cannot be reformed except with a shotgun.

Pap sues Judge Thatcher for Huck's fortune. He also continues to

threaten Huck about attending school, which Huck does partly to spite his

father. Pap goes on one drunken binge after another. One day he kidnaps

Huck and takes him deep into the woods, to a secluded cabin on the Illinois

shore. He locks Huck inside all day while he goes out. Huck enjoys being

away from civilization again, though he does not like his father's beatings

and his drinking. Eventually, Huck finds an old saw hidden away. He slowly

makes a hole in the wall while his father is away, resolved to escape from

both Pap and the Widow Douglas. But Pap returns as Huck is about to finish.

He complains about the "govment," saying Judge Thatcher has delayed the

trial to prevent Pap from getting Huck's wealth. He has heard his chances

are good, though he will probably lose the fight for custody of Huck. He

further rails against a biracial black visitor to the town. The visitor is

well dressed, university- educated, and not at all deferential. Pap is

disgusted that the visitor can vote in his home state, and that legally he

cannot be sold into slavery until he has been in the state six months.

Later, Pap wakes from a drunken sleep and chases after Huck with a knife,

calling him the "Angel of Death," stopping when he collapses in sleep. Huck

holds the ri e against his sleeping father and waits.

Chapters 7-10 Summary

Huck falls asleep, to be awakened by Pap, who is unaware of the night's

events. Pap sends Huck out to check for fish. Huck finds a canoe drifting

in the river and hides it in the woods. When Pap leaves for the day, Huck

finishes sawing his way out of the cabin. He puts food, cookware,

everything of value in the cabin, into the canoe. He covers up the hole in

the wall and then shoots a wild pig. He hacks down the cabin door, hacks

the pig to bleed onto the cabin's dirt oor, and makes other preparations so

that it seems robbers came and killed him. Huck goes to the canoe and waits

for the moon to rise, resolving to canoe to Jackson's Island, but falls

asleep. When he wakes he sees Pap row by. Once he has passed, Huck quietly

sets out down river. He pulls into Jackson's Island, careful not to be

seen.

The next morning in Chapter Eight, a boat passes by with Pap, Judge and

Becky Thatcher, Tom Sawyer, his Aunt Polly, some of Huck's young friends,

and "plenty more" on board, all discussing the murder. They shoot cannon

over the water and oat loaves of bread with mercury inside, in hopes of

locating Huck's corpse. Huck, careful not to be seen, catches a loaf and

eats it.

Exploring the island, Huck is delighted to find Jim, who at first

thinks Huck is a ghost. Now Huck won't be lonely anymore. Huck is shocked

when Jim explains he ran away. Jim overheard Miss Watson discussing selling

him for eight hundred dollars, to a slave trader who would take him to New

Orleans. He left before she had a chance to decide. Jim displays a great

knowledge of superstition. He tells Huck how he once "speculated" ten

dollars in (live)stock, but lost most of it when the steer died. He then

lost five dollars in a failed slave start-up bank. He gave his last ten

cents to a slave, who gave it away after a preacher told him that charity

repays itself one-hundred-fold. It didn't. But Jim still has his hairy arms

and chest, a portent of future wealth. He also now owns all eight-hundred-

dollars' worth of himself.

In Chapter Nine, Jim and Huck take the canoe and provisions into the

Страницы: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14