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SUMMARY
This chapter begins with another attempt, by Miss Watson, to tame and refine the gauche lad, by teaching him Religion. She admonishes him for getting his clothes dirty. She avers that one can get anything by praying to God. Such tall claims fail to impress Huck because they don't help him in any way. He is not able to appreciate why, if it were true, does the widow not find her silver snuff box., Why does God not help Deacon Winn get his lost money back. Why Miss Watson doesn't get a more pleasant personality. Pondering over his experience, he concludes that all this talk, about God's gifts, is gibberish and not worthy of his time and efforts. "Providence, and other such flamboyant concepts baffle him, and he decides to think no more of them.
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| The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Chapter 3 |
During this time, Huck is told that his father, Pap Finn, has been found drowned in the river. Because the body was floating on his back and the face is so bloated that is it is unrecognizable, the superstitious Huck does not believe it is Pap and worries that the violent Pop wil show up again, though he does not really look forward to it.
The chapter acquaints us with everyones disillusionment with Tom's robber gang since they haven't been able to live up to all the adventure that they had hoped for. All that they gain in the name of fulery is turnips, the paraphernalia of attacking the Arabs, with their entire caravan, comes to zilch. In actuality, it was nothing more than children's Sunday School Picnic. Tom, in the true spirit of Don Quixote, refuses to soft-pedal the graudiloquent attack, saying that magicians helped the Arabs. In the hope of getting genies to help them too, Huck rubs an old lamp. He continues till he starts sweating but, obviously, nothing happens, disillusioning him luther.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
The chapter open's by once again contrasting the widow Douglas and Miss Watson. When Huck comes home once more with dirty clothes the nagging Miss Watson scolds him for his careless ways. The kind widow Douglas does not offer a word of criticism, she merely takes Huck's clothes and washes them. When the widow Douglas speaks about Heaven, she talks of Heaven and other wonderful things; when Miss Watson speaks of religion, she warms about the devil and talks about damnation.
This chapter exposes the hollowness of Miss Watson's preaching and Tom's tall claims of adventure. Interestingly both of therm are icons of sophistry of the middle class, while Huck is uncouth and boorish.
To Huck, the lady's assertion, that one can get whatever one wants, by praying, seems a big lie, what good is a fish line without hooks? As a young boy of fourteen, he doesn't understand, and justifiably so, exalted notions of Providence', "Spiritual gifts" and being a philanthropist, who doesn't think about himself at all. Very candidly, he decides to do away with all the supposed romance of 'selflessness' because he can see no use for himself in it.
Tom's tall claim, of reaching the Zenith of heroism and tasting adventure, also fall flat when they fail to rob anybody for days together. Huck realizes it to be a Sunday school activity, totally bereft of all the charm and glamour that was initially promised.
Huck's disillusionment with both Miss Watson and Tom is symbolic of his views, which are essentially naturalistic, free of any pretensions towards refinement. He looks forward to solid, concrete results. For him, seeing is believing, He is a rationalist. His rationality finds expression when he analyzes the fact that Pap couldn't be dead because a dead man floats on his face. A discerning reader would; undoubtedly commend Huck for his cerebral thought process that his in sharp contrast to Tom's laughable inclination towards bookish learning. He is definitely more intelligent than the urbane lot.