Huckleberry Finn Coursework

Authors Avatar

Intro

The Grangerfords (P2)

Huck lies about his identity in chapter 19 to the Duke and the King, as he uses lies to protect other people, such as Jim. By lying to others, do two wrongs make a right, making ok to lie? Although, Huck lies to others as he is meant to be dead, and as Jim is a slave, he does not want Jim to be taken back to the slavery part of society. At the start of Huckleberry Finn, truth is mentioned, but when you come to think about it, truth can actually be in accord to real things, or to an original standard. However, nothing is ever true, but just your perception of the truth. Andrew Lang, an essay expert writes truth as being found in a lack of distortion from the actual world. Whereas, Twain’s thoughts relate to morality being a larger part of Huck’s concepts of truth.

           Huck is very taken by all that the Grangerfords have, by saying ‘a mighty nice family, and a mighty nice house’. For Huck, who has never really had a proper home aside from Widow Douglas’s rather spartan house, the Grangerford house looks supreme to him. Huck later goes onto comment, that the house ‘had so much style’. Placed elegantly on the table were books such as the Bible, a Hymn book and the Pilgrim’s Progress; these books were ‘piled up perfectly exact’. The Pilgrim’s Progress was used by Twain to satirize the Protestant southern aristocracy.  But, by having such religious books as the Bible, and still going to church every Sunday (ref. To chapter 18), you would think that the Grangerfords were very religious, but at church, ‘brotherly love’ is used throughout the services; ‘the men took their guns along’ and ‘kept them’ close by – how does taking a gun to church show brotherly love? By having these guns close by, this strongly suggests that they would want to be used, but relating to religious references, in the Ten Commandments: ‘Thou shall not kill’ is used; so the Grangerfords outwardly show that they are devout Christians, but inwardly they would rather take a life of someone, than be a complete Christian.

           At the end of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck was abandoned by his father, and was taken in by Widow Douglas and Miss Watson. Huck tolerated their attempts to try to ‘civilise’ him, but he’d rather be smoking his pipe and fishing in the river.

Paragraph 3

There are many things inside the Grangerfords house which could suggest that they were devout Christians. Things such as having the Bible, could show that they are devout Christians, because the Bible was ‘full of pictures’ and this allows all members of the Grangerford family to read it; even the least literate of the family. However, most of the characters in Huckleberry Finn claim that they are devout Christians, but in reality behave anything but a Christian way. Some do use religion as a way to obtain wealth. The Grangerfords go to church, own religious books, and talk about brotherly love being such a lovely thing. However, they take their guns to church and kill their neighbours. This would have been ever so against God’s wishes; religion just isn’t cracked up to what people think it is, and so the Grangerfords can act as devout Christians on the outside, but can be far from Christians on the inside.  

Join now!

           Emmeline’s paintings can suggest that she enjoys painting very morbidly. As we learn from reading the book, Emmeline is so enthusiastic about her artistic pursuits that she would usually beat the undertaker to a new corpse.  In some ways, adults would find Emmeline’s paintings precocious, but children would just think her paintings are clever. Emmeline could see life as morbid. But, relating this back to religion does praying keep death away from the Grangerford house? Or is seen as testing God in ways that are possible? If you were to reflect this back to current ...

This is a preview of the whole essay