Chapter 4-7

QDJ Ethan Duplisea

In the beginning of the chapters, there is talk about the sunflowers that are all around the road. The first story that Otto tells Jim is that the Mormons planted the seeds there in order to mark the way for future travelers. If someone told me that story, I would believe them because it is a reasonable explanation why some people would do that if they have just found the land for the first time. Another part in chapter four that caught my eye was when they said Mrs. Shimerda used to be a good housewife back home. Because of traveling from one country to another, she has not fit in yet. My thought on this issue was that she has not used to the environment and/or the crops there that she is not used to when she is cooking. Then we learn about the tow Russians, and one does not speak english at all. The one who does started talking to Ántonia and talks about back home. How everyone eats watermelons and if he was home his daughter would be cooking for him. The last one was when everyone was sitting around a fire and Jim talked about an old beggar woman named Old Hata. Then it kinda got creepy and basically said she is a ghost and if you welcome her spirit, she will sing.

Symbolism of the River and Society

I think that the river is a symbol more than a metaphor because it represents many different topics. The first topic is about freedom., and when Tom and Huck are on the river, there are no promlems. Once they wonder off the river and into the towns where there are more people, then they start having problems. The river is their "happy place" in the book because they can talk about anything and dont have to worry about anything. The things they would be worrying about would be Tom getting caught and brought back to his owner, but his owner already granted his freedom but he does not know. Huck is running away from his dad and everyone back home because he hates it there. He also does not realize that his father is also dead and he does not have to deal with him now. Tom and Huck are closer then you think to eachother. Both running away to get free from someone, and they were already free in the first place.

Self Reliance Ethan

Huck in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn does act like the characters in Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self Reliance" that we discussed in class. I feel like Huck does a lot of things for himself or pointing towards himself. Huck sort of sounds like my quote I picked. I forgot my paper that has my quote on it in the class room, but I do remember it saying that no one knows what exactly happened to you until they did exactly what you did. How this connects to Huck in the story I think is the scene where he was on the boat with the murders or robbers and interacted with them. Talking to others now scared or friended he was, no one else would know exactly how he was feeling unless he was right next to him during this scene. 

Family Feud

In chapter 17, this was the chapter when Huck meet Saul, Rachel, Buck, and Betsy, who is their black slave. This is the family and they all had a gun point at Huck in the beginning of the chapter. In chapter 18, Huck and Buck jump into the bushes when a boy walks by. Buck takes a shot at him with his gun. This part of the book was a little bit startling because it was still confusing about why Buck had a gun and was shooting at someone. Then Huck asks the question of why Buck tried to kill this apparently harmless guy. This was when Buck started to describe to Huck the Family Feud and how it started 30 years ago but he does not know why. He can not remember because he has not been alive that long. Buck said it all started when Shepherdson shot his fourteen year old cousin to death. The man who Buck took a shot at was Shepherdson. Then they go home and soon go to church later in the day. I do not really understand well enough what Twain is really trying to get across right now with the feud situation. I think he is trying to show us how crazy the family is or how crazy the time era was when this was happening.

QDJ1 Huckleberry Finn Intro

If the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was not written in original folk language, it wouldn't have "sealed the deal". The way Mark Twain wrote this book made us as a reader, believe this story was true. It made me feel like I was standing next to Huck when this book was being written. If you have never lived in the south, it puts us into the southern states and shows how the people in the south talk. The most common phrase that all the southerners use is y'all when they are talking about a group of people. When I am reading this book, the characters remind me of how cowboys talked in the movies. They use a lot of words with parentheses, like aren't and hadn't instead of using the full words like are not and had not. A line that popped out at me in the reading was on the first page, "She put me in them new clothes again...". I have a few friends that speak like this that are from the south. This book was based back when slavery was still an issue and the one word that all white men would use that referred to African-Americans is in this book multiple times. When watching documentaries on the History Channel at home, when they are talking about a historical event, many involve African-Americans. Even learning about slavery in history class helps me have a better understanding of how the theme of the book is wrapped around. Because people may not have listen to other people talk like how the characters in the book are talking, it made it hard to read for some. How Mark Twain used his words in this book made readers believe that they were thrown in a time machine and shot back into time, all because of how the words are used.