are the Wilks brothers the real ones?

             When the duke and the dauphin were pretending to be the real ones, the new Wilks brothers came to the house. They said that they had misfortunes; the younger one broke his arm and their baggage got put off at a town above the town last night by a mistake. So they do not have anything to prove their identification. The town people are confused and they started guessing. My guess is that the new Wilks brothers are NOT the real ones.

             According to Huckleberry, the new old gentleman’s pronunciation is like an Englishman, but it’s not the king’s way. I think that Huck thinks that the new Wilks brothers are real because he knows that the duke and the dauphin are not the real brothers and the new brothers look like the real ones. But, as the duke and the dauphin imitated, the new brothers could imitate, too. Because it just does not sound like the duke’s or the dauphin’s, Huck believes that they pronounce the right way.

             There is a suspicion. When the lawyer compared their handwritings with the real brother’s one, neither the duke’s nor the new gentleman’s handwriting looks like the real brother’s handwriting. The old man says that nobody can read his hand but his brother there, so the younger one copies for him. And he can’t write with his left hand. It sounds like a plausible excuse that he just made. Handwriting is an absolute proof, and neither of their handwriting looks like the original. So, the new one is also not the real brother.

             The new brothers’ plan does not go well, and so does the duke’s. Finally, the new old man says that his brother has a tattoo which says P-B-W on his breast. The duke says that the brother has a blue arrow on his breast. But the people who moved the brother’s body say that they did not see any tattoo. Huck says he did not see any tattoo either. Therefore, it is pretty obvious that the tattoo is a lie and it is for turning people’s attention to the tattoo.

             Nobody knows if the new Wilks brothers are the real ones or not. They somewhat seem to be the real ones. But to consider them as the real ones, they have many suspicious aspects. They might hear about the funeral just as the duke and the dauphin did. For these reasons that I mentioned, I believe that they are not the real brothers.

Korean version of Jane :)

This is Jane wearing a Korean traditional dress called Hanbok (한복).

Who are the duke and the dauphin?

             From the middle of Huck’s journey, the duke and the dauphin join Huck and Jim. They start doing bad things; they steal, deceive people with a poor performance. They would not mind doing anything for money. They pretend to be someone else to collect money. They act like a pirate or even a dead man’s brother. They are corrupted and crazy about money. As we can see their shows that they made, they are clumsy and somewhat funny, too. They are also somewhat bold. They stay in the town for several days to get all the property from the dead man when they are pretending to be the man’s brother from England even though the people in the town might find out that they are swindlers. I also can tell that the duke and the dauphin do not have conscience or moral standards since they justify themselves and do not feel guilty when they do bad things. And they are shrewd. They make the next plan right after they meet the guy who tells them everything about the dead man and people in the town. They get all the information from him right away. Sometimes they are stupid, but sometimes they are smart. In a word, they are typical villains in the story.

shame of human race

In the circus, a drunken man tries to come into the ring. He says that he could ride a horse better than everybody else and the crowd laugh and say alright. The man gets on the horse and holds his neck. The horse starts running, and the man’s heels fly in the air. The horse breaks loose, and the man almost falls. The people go crazy. They just laugh watching him dying. At the end, they find out that they were manipulated, and people yell out with pleasure.

But when Huck sees the man, he could never laugh. Even though it was all fake, Huck still feels bad about it. But when people see a man falling off of the horse’s back, they rather think it is just hilarious than feel uneasy or nervous. People in the circus do not know the value of life. They do not have standards of morality. They enjoy watching a man dying. Huck sees the people through the crowd who is selfish and corrupted. To borrow Huck’s words, it is “shame of human race”.

interesting words in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn!

Bullyragging - bullying, teasing

 : ballyrag to bully, esp by means of cruel practical jokes

Charlemagne - king of the Franks and first ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. Both the King and the Duke are obviously poor liars, completely dependent upon the total ignorance of their victims.

 : king of the Franks (768--814) and, as Charles I, Holy Roman Emperor (800--814). He conquered the Lombards (774), the Saxons (772--804), and the Avars (791--799). He instituted many judicial and ecclesiastical reforms, and promoted commerce and agriculture throughout his empire, which extended from the Ebro to the Elbe. Under Alcuin his court at Aachen became the centre of a revival of learning.

Dauphin - technically, the eldest son of a king

 :  In former times, the king and queen of France's oldest son was called Dauphin.

Jericho - from the Bible, the city that had its walls miraculously destroyed by the sounding of trumpets

 : a town in the West Bank near the N end of the Dead Sea, 251 m (825 ft) below sea level: on the site of an ancient city, the first place to be taken by the Israelites under Joshua after entering the Promised Land in the 14th century bc (Joshua 6)

Seneskal - a person in authority

tanyard - the section in a tannery where tanning vats are kept

Huck's escape

             Many children sometimes dream of running away from home. Then, did Huck actually “escape” from his father, or was it just a childhood dream of running away?

After Huck’s father took him from the widow and kept him in the forest, his father gets drunk very often and beats him, and he even tries to kill him. The house was rather a jail than a home to Huck. Huck did not have his own life, and he felt that his life is threatened. It was rather an escape than a dream or longing. Huck could not endure his father’s violence and curse. Huck escaped for his own life and liberty. He feels so much better in nature with Jim, and he fines his happiness while they go down the river and have a trip in nature. He finds his true life after he ran away.

Huck’s father’s violent was consistent and harsh, So he was able to decide to escape from such an authoritarian father. His decision was more than just a mischief; it was a decision for his life.

The Two Hearts of Society

In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck pretends to be a girl and goes to Mrs. Loftus’ house to see what’s going on in the town. Mrs. Loftus finds out that Huck is a boy and asks him why he is here. Huck tells her that he ran away from his uncle’s farm, and Mrs. Loftus wants to help Huck. On the other hand, she wants to capture Jim, who is a runaway slave, to get the prize.

In this scene, we can see the two sides of society through Mrs. Loftus. Because of her cultural background, she considers capturing Jim from slavery as a good deed, which is to take away a human being’s freedom. But she also wants to help a poor white guy who also tries a human being’s freedom by running away from the farmer! But she does not realize that she is racist because she is so steeped in her culture. It shows that how generous the society was towards white people, and how harsh the people were to slaves. We also see that Mrs. Loftus tries to catch Jim, who has a price of two hundred dollars. She wants to get the award, but she wants to help Huck who has no award. Thus, Mrs. Loftus’ two faces about the award shows people’s greed as well.