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Huck Finn Definition of Superstition

 

            For Huck there were many influences around him that made him superstitious. His two closes friends, Tom and Jim, are both superstitious, although Jim is much more older, practical and wise, Tom is the other extreme being immature and who enjoys a far-fetched story line. In one incident, Jim shows that he enjoys the attention he receives after being bewitched. In reality Huck and Tom played a joke on him and hung his hat from a tree. "And the next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers" (Twain 8). Jim became known as an "authority" on witches. Other blacks would come from far to here his story (Bruce 7). Huck's father, even though he was never around, had a small influence on Huck and his thoughts. Pap wore a cross on the bottom of his shoe to ward away the devil. "There was a cross in the left boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil" (Twain 17). Although the widow and Miss Watson look down upon superstitious, they have no way to control the people that Huck encounters. .
             Hucks troubles seem to start up after he kill the spider leading us to believe it was really bad luck that had fallen upon him. " Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in the candle; and before I could budge it was all shriveled up. I didn't need anybody to tell me that was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes off of me" (Twain 5). He was so set on his ways he became afraid of what might happen to him since he had no way to get rid of his bad turn in events. "But I hadn't no confidence. You do that when you've lost a horseshoe that you've found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn't ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you"d killed a spider" (Twain 5).


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