Monday, February 2, 2009

Huck Finn + Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, by George Byron (canto1)


When Huck is warned he mightgo to the "bad place", he counters he'd rather go there, a change of scene.

 And now Childe Harold was sore sick at heart,
 And from his fellow bacchanals would flee;
 ’Tis said, at times the sullen tear would start,
 But pride congealed the drop within his e’e:
 Apart he stalked in joyless reverie,
 And from his native land resolved to go,
 And visit scorching climes beyond the sea;
 With pleasure drugged, he almost longed for woe,
And e’en for change of scene would seek the shades below.

Wronging Huck's rite of passage skewing patrilinearity, society sides with Pap -the grotesque whited sepulchre, the embodiment or core of White evil - - gifting custody despite history abuse and vice - comment South, slavery - misled blind judge give $1 to father. dad binge, drunken rage, kidnap, cabin in woods, chase "angel of death" - the boy is confused, ill-informed of moral values and consistent principles imparting meaning to existence.
A satire on society, reform.
Huck is trapped between Scylla, Charybdis. The River - archetypal idiom of life, emblem of being, Skamander, Tiber, Nile, Amazon, Thames, Congo, Volga, Arne, Yangtzi, Euphrates, Ob, Lethe, Triton, Jordan, Cocytus, offers an exit to an absurd stalement in which existence is the rarified misery of nonagency, the pupptted pawn of others. Self-interested powers act to promote personal and public agenda - hypocrites, institutionalized lobbying..
Jim and Huck returnedly discuss magic and superstitions are the lens to see fortune destiny;
environment is the surreal landscape of the human condition. Storm as King Lear's crisis.
Dead man - muse bad luck, handke discarded snakeskin; joke dead rattler next to Jim's sleep, mate stings: in the end, they (we) realize the actual bad luck as result of negative components.
volatile.

The linked fates - intertwined. an island - eye of the storm. Imperiled break from society - isle paradise - smoke, fish, berries, fantasy island sequestered from cant of society - alternative family form
houseboat signs of life - cards, whiskey bottles - Dad - son shielded from sins of fathers, dead older generation, life is a river, river current of time, ineluctable impulse forward some control.


snakes lurk on Jackson Island like sanke in garden of Eden


explosive, unstable servant celebrity of hag-ridden jim; boys to cave of imagination
prayer meaning - help others, payers only do good others; there exist 2 gods
rumor circulates pap dead. face distorted unrecognizabl as mask true identity alien

Don Juan - Sunday School Picnic enchanted Arabs, Elephants, Tom's supernatural world parallels the widow's religious scaffold - ironize sentimentality, romanticism popular genre - fairy models -
leads to Hucks skepticism = folis boyishness links opposites in mutual orbit.
Tom's lofty perspective

acculturation process - Rousseau's noble savage, Blake's innocent child, gradually snded down till become sheople.

Travel anight hide steal decoy, robbers become victims, pity robbers stranded on wreck - rapscallions - wreck of the Walter Scott - two runaways' raft sanctuart capsule free system at odds with universe. disobedience authority

fog thick lost direction - Dante lost start Inferno. Trick Jim think all storm a dream - is reality a dream? Which is reality? sowing discord.
"be lowlie wise" mind own business. explore ruined steamboat mistake, tie up to wreck stormy night dark consequences - "wandering in mazes lost"

error
. There is a tiger behind every door.
overhears plotting robbers in ship.

Cairo, mouth of Ohio river - free state goal. upriver back in time old memories formative experince of innocence.

Jim cries out h only friend. hf decide handiness//morality (harbor runaways - the "right thing" How do we challenge conventional wisdom, traditional culture, authority of predecessors.

Analogy cow talk, men - animal farm : Huck less free than Jim, imprisoned mainstream thinking in white society, reject conventional morality chose internal notion of right.

[canoe disappear, collide raft steambiat separate, hub huck, dogs spokes
huck transgender Sarah]

orphan lie Huck lands midst of family feud meet mirror in rural antfarm Buck - Shepherders,
Grangerford.

raft open space, no fences walls, blocking barriers blind ignorance - what we don't know makes what we do.

See some wate mocassins - snake in grass turns out to be Jim. deadly vendetta erupts bloodbsth flee

ch19 - tartar scam removes more than plaque.
enterprising conartist marry their talents two wings of the same butterfly.

Emilys overwhelmingly bad paintings - bad taste Victorian sentimentalism, romantic conceits (huck genuine marvel at palace) propenstiy mourning melancholy - oversealous bad taste morbid subj - cruel laugh - riches concern wealt, fanily honor ridiculous notion creates ssmtifamuky, ubfs ily, afsmily, oipposite egat should. lineage of generations creates greatest foolly in novel.


Duke and Dauphin criminals who govern the space fugitives live in, power,
conners and charlatans, wield society's jovean retribution, adams eves sib of selfauthorahip
heart of darkness, conduit to freedom, wayout

22 duke prints hadbill, adverts, valency of written word. industrisl age, technos tecgnology power


to be or not to be. actors professional lyers. ROYAL NONESUCH (women, children admitted no! - patriarchy - potent but bungling insidious, incredible malice, con artist can con relig meeting because it is basiccally a con itself. playing a dangerous game, swindling masses and outwitting angry cuckolded. artful artists art fake dauphin and bilgewater.

arkansas lasy young men smoking kliafing nothing to do no thoughts in head - deataled describe

lynchmob mob power juggeranaut - sherman attacks cowardive og mob tsunami wield destructive unbridled stranth - shutgun. eloquences deplorable cowardicve of, respectable citizens who do bad in name of good

23 scarlet fever deaf daughter unable gear jim recall

smallpx ruse fool hunt for escapee, jim must be tied up to be free


con daughter gold house wilkes sisters generous charity guft ti daughtersimposters - audience selfish vindictiveness eable inept crowning
dr robinson cassandra appears self-righteous - moral cofudsion
stupid gullible wilkes sisters

victim crimal as criminals; jim beat daughter undeserved - noble humanity - forgive all but self honesty role fir huch
racist upbringing empathy for blacks

ch 26
joanna hairlip sheffield as prot minister
swindkw sweet women, duke wont leave until steal all money.

front room dead father lies in parlor

dog basement dog caught a rat - coffin never opened,
dauphin says take firls estate take to england. missing money huck blames family slaves. but joanna told confess promise silent til h able save jim
auction mob stopped real bros,
26
though huck experiience grosth, indecisive not able stopped duke etc. now acts. contradictory mss from society. (later mary-jane crying impels huck resolute - brreakup love of family - bkack family.

both seeming good - warson and bad -duke - willing to perpetuate sinful acts - separate bond of love between mother and child. serious but comic.

29 harvet Wilkes authentic english accents no sign language broken arm cannot talk
more desparate lies check coffin $$$ h lights out, fat off again, then accident duke and dauphin cross paths fortune agian. all escaped all suspect each other hid gold.

conmen start plotting suspiciously. no sign of jim, printed bills reward for jim, sold $40

confusion quandary j what to do - ashamed to be known as help slve escape.
steal jim to free him.

29-31 bungling inept charm last vestige vanish - Satan deterioted Paradise Lost. evil pursues Huck and Jim on raft. When Huck cannot pray hypocritically (god is only can tell difference), follow consciouness. accept sacrifice heaven go to hell

was anyone hirt no a nigger was killed that was lucky. devalue life.
sally basically good but blind to racist mores.

33 tom sees a ghost - h shocked at tom's spineless engagement in plan to antagonizes society pronciples tom emulate Huck's respect tom fell.

cried tar feather conscience useless makes you fell bad no matter what you do.

34. tom plan more stylish. brash romantic adventure foolish conform socisl exprctant preserve reputation, though huck willing give up booth - tim just sees opportunity adventure. dim fir watermelon. saw off jims leg.


superstitious slave sees as ghost jim to think work of witches. exploit

38 force jim inscribe autograph inside shed, mournful declarations (should be stone though - millstone) tom natural ablity to supervise. smuggle rattlesnake into shed
15 rats under sally's bed - spiders, etc. Sally rasing Cain. supper - honest rattling good day's work - bagged but not tied - all escaped. week later sally still sensed snakes

spiders disliked jim disliked spiders. circus. if ever got free never be a slave again.

letter
- always significant - being in a remote place at least in voice. later anonymous letters warning poeple to attract attention, mullett-headed fools - calm seas are boring,

[Dryden Absalom and Achitophel:

name to all succeeding ages curst:
For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,
Restless, unfixed in principles and place,
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace
A fierysoul, which working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
A daring
pilot in extremity,

Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high, 160
He sought the storms ; but, for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied ,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide ;
Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest ?
Punish a body which he could not please,
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease ?
And all to leave what with his toil he won

and The Medall:
The frauds he learnt in his fanatic years
Made him uneasy in his lawful gears.
At best, as little honest as he could,
And, like white witches, mischievously good.
To his first bias longingly he leans
And rather would be great by wicked means.
Thus framed for ill, he loosed our triple hold,
(Advice unsafe, precipitous, and bold.)
From hence those tears, that Ilium was our woe:
Who helps a powerful friend forearms a foe.
What wonder if the waves prevail so far,
When he cut down the banks that made the bar?
Seas follow but their nature to invade;
But he by art our native strength betrayed.
So Samson to his foe his force confest,
And to be shorn lay slumbering on her breast. ]

remoteness in time as Don Quixote - romantic undercurrent far away long ago.

huck enthralled in tom's game, forgets the objective of rescue, jim captive powerless, snakes for fun, clouded dynamic, tom smothered out all lessons in an instant learned on raft with jim. objectification just as sally and uncke sailas janusfaced treatment free slave. little basis objective judgment.

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