journal 13

Nika Bogoslovsky
1/25/08
Twain

Quote: "So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter..."

Summary: Huck comes up with the idea to write Miss Watson a letter telling her where Jim is. He thinks it's the right thing to do and feels good for writing it. But realizing how good of a person Jim is, Huck tears the letter up, ultimately doing the right thing.

Response: What makes the part when Huck decides to tear up the letter more powerful is that he’s just a kid making such an adult decision. Someone mentioned, in class, that it might be easier to make those types of decisions being a kid because they haven’t been molded by society like adults have. I agree with that remark but for a kid to make a decision based on the fact that he might go to hell seems so brave. I wonder if Huck was put in the same position just in his twenties, if he’d decide to tear up the letter. I want to believe he would but something tells me he wouldn’t. In addition to putting himself into Huck, I think Twain tries to tell us about kids and not to forget that we can learn from them too. They are youthful, trusting, adaptable and always ready to learn and usually seeing the good in people. There's a reason why Twain didn't make Huck an adult, and it's that "reason" he wants us to learn from kids.