2. Huck's rationality and literalness appear in this chapter as Twain builds on Huck’s characterization. Twain constructs certain situations in order to show that Huck is a logical thinker who only believes what he can see with his own eyes. As a result of these characteristics, Tom's band becomes boring to Huck when all they do is attack wagons and Sunday school picnics. Unlike Tom Sawyer, Huck is unable to make-believe that the picnic is really an Arab army. These characteristics are developed further later in the novel.
This focus on rationality and literalness is used by Twain to further attack religion. Huck is told to pray for what he wants, but when he prays and does not get anything, he decides that praying is pointless. This reinforces that Huck is unable to understand religion, as he is taught the belief system, but does not understand that there are certain actions that go along with that. Huck also thinks about the Christian concept of always helping other people. When he realizes that Christianity seems to offer him no personal advantage in life, he quickly rejects it as quite pointless. The audience is able to understand that Huck is rejecting the values of his society and instead chooses to make moral choices based on his conscience, logic and experiences.
This chapter shows Huck’s society trying to teach and build up this idea of God and the concept of ‘going to hell’ for committing what that society views as sins. This is the basis for the choices Huck makes in later chapters; to help Jim and overcome the values of his society to prove that he can make his own decisions. Huck struggles against his religious education in order to attain what he considers to be true freedom.
Due to the novel being from Huck’s point of view, readers are positioned to accept Huck’s ideas and opinions. For example, when he and Tom Sawyer are at the Sunday School, we are inclined to think Tom is just making up one of his ludicrous stories because that is how Huck views the situation. However, while Huck looks up to Tom, the audience is positioned to dislike his character due to the way he treats and acts towards Huck.
3. I found Twain’s arguments about religion quite logical, if not slightly naïve. I enjoyed reading Huck’s thoughts about Christianity and his struggle against it as I have no particular love of religion myself. His approach is very mature, considering his lack of understanding and faith and I was very entertained when he was debating the logic behind praying.
