The Poetry of Huckleberry Finn

1
The Poetry of Huckleberry Finn

• Ive known rivers
• Ancient, dusky rivers.
• My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes
2
Part One Who is Huck?

• Huckleberry Finn, youngun to town drunk and
  perpetual pariah Pap, is an outcast. Parents
  warn their children against playing with him
  kids find him mysterious and exciting. Poor,
  uneducated, wild, and ignorant none of these
  reasons for 1840 to shun him literary scholars
  speculate on his parentage. Is Huck of mixed
  race? We know one thing for sure Huck is a
  lonely, independent kid with a streak of bravery
  and a developing conscience.

3
Cross by Langston Hughes

• My old mans a white old man
• And my old mothers black.
• If ever I cursed my white old man
• I take my curses back.
• If ever I cursed my black old mother
• And wished she were in hell,
• Im sorry for that evil wish
• And now I wish her well.
• My old man died in a fine big house.
• My ma died in a shack.
• I wonder where Im gonna die,
• Being neither white nor black?

Author's Corner Shelley Fisher Fishkin
4
Genius Child by Langston Hughes
This is a song for the genius child. Sing it
softly, for the song is wild. Sing it softly as
ever you can Lest the song get out of
hand. Nobody loves a genius child. Can you love
an eagle, Tame of wild? Wild or tame, Can you
love a monster Of frightening name? Nobody loves
a genius child. Kill him and let his soul run
wild!
genius 1390, from L. genius "guardian deity or
spirit which watches over each person from birth
spirit, incarnation, wit, talent," from root of
gignere "beget, produce" (see kin), from PIE base
gen- "produce." Meaning "person of natural
intelligence or talent" first recorded 1649.
Online Etymology Dictionary
5
Genius Guardian Spirit That Watches Over a
Person a Natural

• Like Peter Pan, Huck is a Natural. He is the
  guardian spirit of boyhood. Boys are drawn to
  him, parents fear him. The wild lure of Huck is
  like Pans pipes calling to young ears. And like
  Pan, Huck shows no promise of gettin
  sivilized- he lights out for the wilds yet
  again.

6
Part Two Hucks Adventure Begins

• I went exploring around down through the island.
  
• I was boss of it it all belonged to me(49).
• Hucks wave of sorrow namely his no-good,
  abusive father, the burden of a fortune, and the
  moral attention of the Widow and her sister
  threatens to drown him. He escapes to a literal
  island of calmness, quiet, and safety. Huck can
  relax, certainly, but he can also think. I
  knowed I was all right now.(49)

7
Island by Langston Hughes
Wave of sorrow, Do not drown me now I see the
island Still ahead somehow. I see the island And
its sands are fair Wave of sorrow, Take me there.
8
Two Nobodies

• I was ever so glad to see Jim. I warnt
  lonesome, now.(52)
• Hucks discovery of Jim is more than just an
  opportunity for adventure. Maybe Tom Sawyer
  would see it this way, but Huck sees it for what
  it is now hes got someone else, which verifies
  his own existence. Indeed, Jim and Huck are
  considered parallel characters.

9
Twins?

• JIM HUCK
• Father and husband separated Young man
  separated from family by slavery
• Outcast or second-hand citizen Outcast or
  second-hand citizen due to race due to
  poverty or parentage
• Runaway avoiding being sold Mistreated by
  Miss Watson and
• by Miss Watson and looking runaway
  looking for something
• to buy back family better
• Superstitious seer of the hairball
  Superstition believer
• Strong sense of right (stays to Strong sense
  of own hearts dictates help a wounded Tom)
  (helps Jim hide and escape)

10
Im Nobody by Emily Dickinson

• Im nobody! Who are you?
• Are you nobody too?
• Then theres a pair of us dont tell!
• Theyd banish us, you know.
• How dreary to be somebody!
• How public like a frog,
• To tell your name the livelong day
• To an admiring bog!

"Huck and Jim" by Thomas Hart Benton
11
Big River
It was a monstrous big river down there
sometimes a mile and a half wide. (Twain 128)

• The Mississippi River, the fourth longest river
  in the world, is located in the central US and
  flows 2,350 miles from Minnesota to the Gulf of
  Mexico. When it reaches Missouri, it meets the
  Illinois, Ohio, and Missouri Rivers, quadrupling
  its volume.

Mississippi River Sates map. Enchanted
Learning. 2001-2008. 13 March 2008
lthttp//www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/statesbw/mrs
tates/msbw.GIFgt.
12
On the Mississippi by Hamlin Garland

• Through wild and tangled forests The broad,
  unhasting river flows-- Spotted with rain-drops,
  gray with night Upon its curving breast there
  goes A lonely steamboat's larboard light, A
  blood-red star against the shadowy oaks
  Noiseless as a ghost, through greenish gleam Of
  fire-flies, before the boat's wild scream-- A
  heron flaps away Like silence taking flight.

Take a Little Walk With Me -Robert Lockwood,
Jr. Some Mississippi Blues Music
13
Novas of our born days

• Huck and Jim are novas of their born days. They
  are original humans in the original garden with
  the original sin threatening to undermine their
  happiness and freedom. The serpent of society is
  coiled and ready to strike. An ominous tone
  settles over the novel with the arrival of the
  Duke and the king.

Nova www.udel.edu
14
From The Concrete River We sink into the
dust, Baba and me, Beneath brush of prickly
leaves Ivy strangling trees--singing Our last
rites of locura. Homeboys. Worshipping God-fumes
Out of spray cans. Our backs press up against
A corrugated steel fence Along the dried banks
Of a concrete river. Spray-painted outpourings
On walls offer a chaos Of color for the eyes.
Home for now. Hidden in weeds. Furnished with
stained mattresses And plastic milk crates.
Wood planks thrust into thick branches serve
as roof. The door is a torn cloth curtain
(knock before entering). Home for now,
sandwiched In between the maddening days. We
aim spray into paper bags. Suckle them. Take
deep breaths. An echo of steel-sounds grates the
sky. Home for now. Along an urban-spawned
Stream of muck, we gargle in The technicolor
synthesized madness.
This river, this concrete river, Becomes a
steaming, bubbling Snake of water, pouring over
Nightmares of wakefulness Pouring out a rush
of birds A flow of clear liquid On a cloudless
day. Not like the black oil stains we lie in,
Not like the factory air engulfing us Not this
plastic death in a can. Sun rays dance on the
surface. Gray fish fidget below the sheen. And
us looking like Huckleberry Finns/ Tom Sawyers,
with stick fishing poles, As dew drips off low
branches As if it were earth's breast milk. Oh,
we should be novas of our born days. We should
be scraping wet dirt with callused toes. We
should be flowering petals playing ball. Soon
water/fish/dew wane into A pulsating whiteness.
I enter a tunnel of circles, Swimming to a
glare of lights. Family and friends beckon me.
I want to be there, In perpetual dreaming In
the din of exquisite screams. I want to know
this mother-comfort Surging through me.
15
Lost, Losers, and Loss

• Jim and Huck are separated several times (raft
  accident, Hucks flights on shore, and when Jim
  is sold). Each feels the others absence sorely.
  As Jim says, Yous de bes fren Jims ever
  had en yous de only fred ole Jims got now.
  (101) Huck declares that hed go to hell for Jim
  (228).
• When the King and the Duke join the travelers,
  the dynamics of the boat change. Jim is hidden,
  invisible once again Huck is submissive, as he
  was with Pap. Neither feel free or happy with
  the two confidence men. Their nonsense leads to
  Jims imprisonment and Hucks capture too (back
  into civilized company).

16
Dream by Langston Hughes
Last night I dreamt This most strange dream, And
everywhere I saw What did not seem could ever
be You were not there with me! Awake, I turned
And touched you Asleep, Face to the wall. I
said, How dreams Can lie! But you were not there
at all!
17
Nonsense and Nonesuch

• The Duke and the King, two frauds and confidence
  men, represent the greedy, base aspects of
  humanity. Huck is ashamed on their behalf
  humans are commodities to these scoundrels
  something to sell, trade, or use. Neither the
  Duke nor the King have any scruples. They shows
  the classic signs of sociopathy

1. not learning from experience 6. chronically
antisocial behavior 2. no sense of
responsibility 7. no change in behavior after
punishment 3. inability to form meaningful
relationships 8. emotional immaturity 4.
inability to control impulses 9. lack of guilt
5. lack of moral sense 10. self-centeredness
18
The Sociopath by Vince Gullaci

• The SociopathThe heartdoesn't missa beatthe
  lies put the detectorto sleepand the
  gullibleled to the slaughterlike good sheep.
  Vince Gullaci

http//www.k-state.edu/womenscenter/Wolf.jpg
19
Lightin out

• But I reckon I got to light out for the
  Territory before the rest, because Aunt Sally
  shes going to adopt me and sivilize me and I
  cant stand it. I been there before. Yours
  truly, Huck Finn. (307)

Huck knows who he is and what he stands for. He
is comfortable enough in this knowledge to make
decisions that go against the mainstream.He also
knows what society is and what it stands for.
20
Song of Myself, I by Walt Whitman

• I Celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I
  assume you shall assume, For every atom
  belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe
  and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease
  observing a spear of summer grass. My tongue,
  every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil,
  this air, Born here of parents born here from
  parents the same, and their parents the same,
  I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health
  begin, Hoping to cease not till death. Creeds
  and schools in abeyance, Retiring back a while
  sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
  I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at
  every hazard, Nature without check with original
  energy.

Rind 1955 M.C. Escher
Click here to view Escher's Biography and Artwork
21
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