[H] Spencer: Chapters 04-06

The idea of slavery that we talked about in chapters 1-3 is seen again in the flowing chapters. The lies that are brought upon Huck just bring set backs to the progress he was starting to make. Heaven vs. Hell is foreshowing the future. Jim brings up the idea that Huck’s father has two angels, one which is black and white, and one which is bad and one good. For now Huck is safe but we do not know which angle will prevail by the end of the novel. Pap calls Huck the “Angel of death” which is contradictory statement in itself and only adds on to Huck’s uncertainty.

Huck is at a point of confusion in the novel. He is finally starting to go to school which is the right thing to do but it is not ok by the views of his father. Pap is truly a burden on Huck because finally Huck is starting to come around but can not move any further in the right direction because of his father’s jealously. Pap does not love Huck, he abuses him, and makes numerous references to the money Huck has. Pap did not come back to Huck to be his father, he came back to retrieve the money. “I heard about it away down the river, too. That’s why I come you git me that money tomorrow- I want it.” (pg. 15) The social values that are mirrored in the court’s decisions about Hucks’s welfare are slaves who run away from their masters and are returned. Huck is even treated as a slave because he is forced back to his owner, or his dad, after being abused and mistreated. Pap wants one thing and that is money and he will go to any measure to get this.

Pap’s attack on the township in chapter six is ironic because the mixed-race man who visits the town is a problem for Pap because he is actually better then he is. Pap is the white man but he is also the white trash who can not read, racist, and abusive. The mixed-race man is smart and a professor who is well respected. This idea leads back to our discussion of is the book racist or is this a book with racism in it. Is Mark Twain racist or is he actually showing that the whiteness of Pap is the evil and the mixed-race man is the good. The idea of what is actually good and what is actually bad is what is confusing the characters in the book.