Huck Finn
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain contains symbolism associated with superstition. This is demonstrated by both the actions and beliefs of the characters and the events which occur in the story. The way in which friendship supersedes superstition and popular beliefs plays a major role throughout. Huck in particular is forced to mature and forget superstition when he is faced with the internal dilemma of his best friend, Jim, being a runaway slave. In Chapter one, Huck sees a spider crawling up his shoulder, so he flicks it into the flame of a candle, where it shrivles up before he could retrieve it. Huck realizes that it is a bad omen, which will bring bad luck. He becomes scared and shakes off his clothes, then proceeds to turn in his tracks three times. He then ties a lock of his hair with a thread to keep the witches away. "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 i!t was any way to keep of bad luck when you'd killed a spider."(Twain 5). In chapter four, Huck sees Pap's footprints in the snow. He then goes to Jim to ask him why Pap is here. Jim goes and gets a fist sized hairball, which was taken from an ox's stomach.
Also, although not directly mentioned in the book, Huck seems to constantly struggle with the issue of whether or not to return Jim to the widow. The mere concept of "good luck and bad luck" may be in itself considered superstition, but more interesting events begin to unfold. Then, after they eat some dinner on the Fr!iday, they are lying in the grass, when Huck runs out of tobacco. Huck decides that he will be nice to Jim, and try and make him feel better about the snakebite, so he takes the rattles off and ties them to Jim wrist as a bracelet. When Huck goes home and finds Pa there, it re-enforces his belief in the occult and also his trust in his friend Jim. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is filled with symbolism associated with the superstitious beliefs of the South at the time of slavery. In Chapter ten, Huck and Jim run into some "good luck and some bad luck". They then decide to cook part of it, and eat it. De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sil in en gust it all up. Jim said it would help him, and to this Huck narrates to the readers, "I made up my mind I wouldn't ever take a-holt of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what had come of it. Sometimes he spec he'll go 'way, en den ag'in he spec he'll stay. You wants to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin, en don't run no resk, 'kase it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne to git hung. In southern culture it is "bad luck" to touch the skin of a rattlesnake, however Huck kills it anyway, and rolls it up to its original shape and puts it on the foot of Jim's blanket as a decoration. A body can't tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him at de las'.
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