If you can't tell, I'm bad at making up discussion questions that will have a lot of conversation, so tell me if you have other ideas.
The last line of Chapter 8 (in my book) has Jim describing how he wished he'd have the money that he was worth. He said "I wisht I had de monet, I wouldn' want no mo'." I liked this idea, so do you think that Jim would be happy with that money, especially considering all the other money that he used to have and what became of it? What do you think Huck is looking for to be happy? Do you think that humans can ever be satisfied with what they have?
Let's try to keep this discussion going throughout the book and see if the ideas change as things progress, I haven't read too far ahead, so I don't know if this is revisited.
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I don't really think that money brings happiness, but I think that it does make being happy a whole lot easier. Don't get me wrong, you can be happy without much money, and you can be unhappy with a lot of money, but without money there is more stress, more friction, and when things get difficult and situations can't be overcome I think that it is a lot harder to be happy. I don't know the conversions, but I think that 800 dollars (what Jim was worth) would have been a lot of money; he probably would have been able to buy his freedom or at least have more control over his own fate, so I think that Jim would be happier with money. But on the other hand, he doesn't seem to be overly responsible with his money. Investing seems to be a good use of what he had, but clever investing is something that I think he missed.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that Huck knows what will make him happy. In the beginning of the book he was really unhappy at the Widow's house and said how much he wanted to go back and live the life like when he was with his father (the hunting, and cursing, not the beating part). He eventually gets used to living a more lavish life and he likes it, but then he is thrown back into his old world and at first he doesn't like it. Then, by-and-by (I will kill someone if he says that again!) he starts to get used to roughing it again and says that he likes being able to curse and sleep all day. The point I'm getting at is that he likes both lives he's had but only the certain aspects; I think that can hold true for anyone though. I think that this whole journey down the river will be about Huck finding what he truly wants out of life. Until now he's had his father, the widow, the judge, and Tom telling him what he's supposed to be doing, and this is that teenage 'finding yourself' thing.
As to whether humans can ever truly be happy, I don’t think it’s possible. Call me cynical (what am I saying, we already do), but I remember the one timed writing we had which I'm too lazy to fish out of my backpack. It was one of the later ones, but I'm pretty sure it said something about there always being a new horizon just beyond this mountain to settle. I took it as the idea that we will never be truly happy with who we are or what we have and we will always be looking to improve ourselves. This is a circular thing, I mean, we improve let’s say be learning. Yay, we’ve mastered Math B (well you guys have) and we take a Regents and lets say that we all pass, hell let’s say we all get 100s for the sake of this example! So we walk into school again in September and there’s Intro to Calc waiting to further us, convincing us that one day we’ll be better off for taking another pointless class. And we’re going to go along with this, and then we’ll go to college and go through it again. There is always going to be something else to master, there is no end to the knowledge that we are expected to gain, thus there is no way we can ever be fully satisfied with our lives.
Wow, sorry about the rant, but maybe we’ll get some good conversation out of this one.
Rants are a beautiful thing :D. I think that wealth is a double edged sword; it can ease tensions or it can create them.
ReplyDeleteRelations with the people around you are much easier and less tense when you are in a calmer, happier state of mind, and while money can't "buy you happiness", it can get you comfort and the resulting happiness. This is a bad example, but a couple of a comfortable economic status may face tensions, but there won't be the added friction of money problems. Yet, if there are money problems the members of a relationship are more likely to be tense and stressed, making them less ready to enjoy life and more ready to yell. Generally sufficient funding means having creature comforts, which definitely helps as far as state of mind goes.
Yet, if Huck hadn't had the money he wouldn't have had the issues involving his father's sudden interest in him. Pap was not well off, and its obvious that his interest in Huck is for purely economic reasons. Here is an example of money attracting unwanted attention and fake emotions from those around you.No attention from his father would have been better than being in the custody of a parent whose goal is exploitation in my opinion.
Would Huck have been content with the money? I'm not really sure. I think that having that much money was a big deal for him and having it for that time was very appreciated. Yet, if its is not used correctly or built upon the source fades away and he would probably not be content having less options in his life once again when that happened. At this point his father would get rid of him again and he would be left with sparse resources. Then again, as previously stated, the lack of Pap maybe wouldn't be such a bad thing.
P.S. I kind of ranted too :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of your points Elena. There's one thing that's bugging me a little bit though. It's about the Judge, Huck says that he made Tom and him invest the money and made it possible to gain a dollar in interest a day (I want to join that bank!). Now this makes a lot of sense I think and I really started to like the Judge right off the block because it seems that he really cares about the kids futures, I mean if you give a kid 6,000 dollars, it's not going to stick around for long. But the thing is, I don't understand why he "bought Huck's land" for a dollar. I don't know, maybe I'm not understanding the convention here, but what I'm thinking is that Huck pretty much traded his fortune for a dollar and the Judge didn't even ask why. So I guess I'm asking if I understood that correctly because it doesn't seem like the Judge is looking out for him? It could be Twain trying to make a point about how adults end up screwing things up all the time, but we haven't gotten far enough for me to see that as a likely theme.
ReplyDeleteOh, and rants are fun! :D
Well then, I guess it's my turn!
ReplyDeleteSo, to start off, I basically agree with the both of you. While money can't be the only cause of happiness, it can help people become happier. With money, people do become more tolerant of each other and seriously eases their tensions. Elena's example was perfect in that sense. It seems to me that money doesn't really make a difference in Huck's life. He did have money and $6000 is a lot of money and was even more back then, and he basically gave it to the judge. The reason I think he gave it to him was so that his father wouldn't get a hold of it; if he had, all the money would help him acquire more alcohol. In that situation, money would make him more miserable. Huck doesn't appreciate the education he was given or the people who took care of him either, so it was actually a better life for him living in a worse situation where he was allowed to do anything he wants. The only thing that seems to make a difference for the better in Huck's life would be if his father stopped drinking.
As for what you mentioned about the judge, Robyn, I really think he does have the kids' best interest in mind. But, by him taking Huck's money no questions asked, I think Twain was showing that greed can overcome even the most good hearted people
Good point about the Greed Mehak. I kind of fell behind on the reading, which I'm going to catch up on now, but I'm also wondering if it might be an attack on adults in general. Just because we start out seeing Huck at the Widow's house and they're forcing him to be someone that he isn't and their trying to teach him. Then we meet Pap who's just generally bad, I mean the drinking, the abuse, everything. Then even the minor adult characters that we meet, I feel, are especially stupider then most people would be. Not in an outright walking into walls sort of thing, but more just a general feel of them not seeing everything that's going on. The only thought that went through my head as Huck staged his kidnapping was the fact that no one would realize that no one would really want this kid. Nothing against Huck, but if the Widow didn't steal him back, and Pap wasn't stealing him from the Widow, then who would really go to all this trouble to kill a kid? Maybe I'm just being really closed minded and I missed something, but I just thought that it was a priceless moment for everyone to be on a boat meters away from Huck and every one of them was blind to his actual being there.
ReplyDeleteSo yeah, that whole thing was to see if anyone else sees a theme of adults being stupid, or I'm just getting out some pent up aggression towards my parents? :)
So yeah, that whole thing was to see if anyone else sees a theme of adults being stupid, or I'm just getting out some pent up agression towards my parents? :)
I actually think that the Widow was genuinly concerned for Huck. Sure she should have treated him a little better and relaxed a little, but she was worried for him when Pap came back. She did go through the trouble to at least investigate a way to get him back, even though she did fail. Pap didn't seem like he was actually interested in Huck at all, but the fact that he did get him back shows that his sober self did care. He even went through the trouble to try and find him after he was found missing. I'm not saying he was a good father or anything, but somewhere inside him, he did care for Huck.
ReplyDelete