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Huckleberry Finn/ chapters 1-6

#93: Jan. - Feb. 2011 (Fiction)
karenlee
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Re: Huckleberry Finn/ chapters 1-6

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Yes, sad and powerful. Overhearing that someone would pay 800.00 for him he feels rich indeed, for he owns himself now and he is worth a lot of money.

I agree that if the context in which something was written can't be grasped then perhaps the reader should wait instead of rewriting an author's original work to fit the reader. Sounds crazy just to say that.
I am looking forward to the rest of the book and hearing your thoughts. I have learned much from the posts already!
WildCityWoman
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Re: Huckleberry Finn/ chapters 1-6

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Well 800 bucks was a lot of money around the time when this book was being written. It was considered to be a fortune whether one was white or black . . . 1884 - 1885? A hundred dollars would have been a lot of money.

When I was a kid in the 50's and 60's, hearing about a hundred bucks was enough to impress me.

When my father died in 1979, I sat down and looked over the insurance papers with my mother. Figured out she had 17,000 dollars coming. Holy cow! Ma! You're rich!

That would be considered peanuts today.
WildCityWoman
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I was born and raised here in southern Ontario. In our neighbourhood - the east end of Toronto, an area called The Beaches, we did not use the word 'nigger'. I cannot think of any place or time that it was acceptable to say the word.

We called black people 'negroes'. We did not call them 'black' and they did not refer to themselves as being 'black'.

When I was 13 (around 1957) our family went to Miami, Florida for about 3 weeks. Traveling down through the American states on the train, I saw many negro people. I was absolutely fascinated with them and wanted to know these people.

We'd been at our hotel in Miami - Ocean View - when the manager spoke to my mother. He told her to see to it that her daughter DID NOT socialize with the negro staff. And I wasn't to stand around chatting with the porter/doorman.

Well, I was furious - just didn't see why not. When I tried to socialize with the children of the staff who worked there, they looked at me as if I was crazy.

I made lots of friends - mostly kids from places in the states. I met kids from New Jersey, Georgia, Alabama. They didn't understand why I wanted to talk to the negro kids either.

When we were going home, we'd been on the train about an hour when I went to the washroom. As the unit in the 'white' car was in use, the conductor told me to go ahead and use the one in the car behind - where the negro people were. Standing outside the door waiting, I met a negro girl my own age. She and I struck up conversation - about the same thing 13 year old girls talked about everywhere - boys . . . I got her to come and sit with me. We sat down and looked over comic books together, etc. My parents had no problem with that.

But the conductor came along and said to my father - we don't do that here, sir! The girl will have to go back to her own car.

My father was furious with the conductor - he did not see why I couldn't have the kid sitting with me if I wanted to.

She, of course, had no choice - she had to move or she'd be thrown off the train.

That frightened me - I just couldn't believe people treated other people like that.

It was my first introduction to America and it left a bad taste in my mouth. I was disappointed 'cause I'd been excited to visit the states and wanted to learn as much as I could about the country.

I've been told that there are people in the states who are the same way to this day. Well, I hope I don't meet any of them.
WildCityWoman
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When I was around 15 or so, we used to play baseball in a field out back of our place. There was a family with a lot of kids around the corner.

One afternoon they had one of their school friends over to play ball with us. His name was Joe Purpaul . . . Joe was as black as telephones. We all called him 'Purple'.

When the other kids went in for supper, I sat out by the garage talking to Joe. I asked him if he wanted to come in and have sandwich at our place. He said 'no', he didn't think my parents would like that.

Later my father asked me about him - he'd been watching us from the kitchen door. He told me then - he said I don't mind you talking with the boy, but you've got to know that 'people will talk about you'.

Dad was just being realistic. He didn't have anything against the negro people, but he knew the world and how some other people would react. He didn't want to see trouble starting.
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Re: Huckleberry Finn/ chapters 1-6

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Thanks for sharing your stories here WCW, amazing to see how short a time ago this was all going on. And yes, I suspect you'd find plenty of unveiled prejudice in the South still. It dies hard. Just striking up a friendship with someone of a different race/creed goes a LONG way to eliminating prejudice. Your parents were wise to see this as valuable.
"And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."--Jesus
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Dawn

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Re: Huckleberry Finn/ chapters 1-6

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I found a rather exhaustive 'definition' here: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Nigger_(word) Apparently the word 'nigger' is used currently among Afro-American youths in a familiar/friendly way, in some places anyway. Incidentally, 'Afro-American' has never seemed quite the right label to me either. What if you're black, but not from Africa at all? Excuse my ignorance if I'm mistaken, but not all dark-skinned people have their origins in Africa, correct? I think I'd resent the assumption that label makes.
"And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."--Jesus
"For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world--to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice."--Jesus
WildCityWoman
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Around the mid-sixties white and black people started openly socializing. It was ok with me.

That's something I like about having been a young adult in the 60's . . . women were able to raise babies on their own; didn't 'have to' marry anybody. People didn't have to hide their sexual orientation anymore.

Well, the war in VN did a lot for that - everybody just threw up their arms and said 'the hell with it'.

I remember 1969 - Hair was here on the stage in Toronto. I went to see it and was thrilled to pieces with it. We had our first daughter in 1971 then moved off to a smaller town and opened a business. Right through the mid-seventies I saw changes taking place. When I went home to Toronto, the city was crammed full of different cultures. I like it and didn't like it all at the same time. But mostly, I was glad for it. It was like people had become people in their own right. Everybody stopped letting old codgers dictate how they were supposed to think.

I have an online friend from the south - she said something to me about 'niggers' once and I put her straight on that - told her 'we don't think that way here'. She never said anything like that to me again.

'Course, I realize - people can only be who they are - it depends on where and how you're raised, I guess.

My own parents were kinda' bigotted. When my mother was in the nursing home, I remember her talking about one of the volunteers. She said to me - that guy there - he's one of those 'queer' guys.

Now, Ma had the kind of whisper that was a shout, y'know . . . you could hear her right across the room. I was embarassed to sin.

My dad had the sense to keep it quiet. Or at least, he kept his comments private.

Some people are just so brazen.

When we started superintending in the building here, in 1994, one of the owners friends came down with one of their family to do some plastering. He walked in and made loud crass comments about some black people that had just gone out the door.

He said right out loud - I see they're letting the niggers in here now.

I was disgusted . . . I said to him - how do you feel about being called a wop? He was taken aback - I said 'see what I mean?'

3/4 of the population is non-white, fer gawd's sake - I don't quite see how some people expect to keep places segregated. It doesn't make sense.

Besides, I doubt there are very few people who are purely white anymore anyway. Fifty years from now we'll be thoroughly mixed, I'm sure.

But still - even among blacks, even among Indians - east Indians and natives, there are prejudices - Jamaicans and Trinnies talk about each other in negative ways. We have a lot of Polish people around our neighbourhood - they make rude comments about black people.

Hungarians make rude comments about Polish people.

Good grief - has it always been this way? I guess it has.

My mother's family were Welsh - some of the older ones talked about the Irish - they didn't like the Irish. Carried grudges from the old days when the Irish stole their jobs.

It's a wild, wild world. But what the hell, if we weren't meant to be all in it together, we wouldn't be.
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Re: Huckleberry Finn/ chapters 1-6

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Dawn wrote:I found a rather exhaustive 'definition' here: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Nigger_(word) Apparently the word 'nigger' is used currently among Afro-American youths in a familiar/friendly way, in some places anyway. Incidentally, 'Afro-American' has never seemed quite the right label to me either. What if you're black, but not from Africa at all? Excuse my ignorance if I'm mistaken, but not all dark-skinned people have their origins in Africa, correct? I think I'd resent the assumption that label makes.
I think 'black' is actually a fairly new term - it's only been in use in the last 40 years or so.

And that's true - not all black/brown people come from Africa.

My mother's family was Welsh - I once looked up a history on the Welsh - they come down from some place in Asia . . . Mongolia, I think - I'd have to go back in and check it out.

So I myself am not purely white.

I do in fact get taken for a native Indian often. It doesn't bother me - I'd be proud to be a native.
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Re: Huckleberry Finn/ chapters 1-6

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My main impression, after completing the first 6 chapters, is how good the story and writing is. That's not a profound observation, since it's widely considered to be one of the greatest novels in US literature. However, literary classics are often unappealing to me, and it's noticeable when one lives up to its reputation.

The book me pulled me into its world very quickly, in part because Huck is such a compelling character. It's a vivid depiction of an American] that's very different than the world I live in. For example, the presence of slaves and widespread belief in superstition are startling.

Huck's father is such a nasty guy. After reading about how he captured and tormented Huck, I'm wondering what will happen next. In school, I read Tom Sawyer but not Huckleberry Finn, and I have no idea where things are going. Since each chapter presents a distinct slice of Huck's world, there's no way to predict where things are headed.
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giselle

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Re: Huckleberry Finn/ chapters 1-6

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DWill wrote: I've read to Chapter 14, and what impresses me most this time around is how good the language is. That might seem strange to say, since English teachers over the years have disapproved of Huck's "grammar." But that's their hang-up; Huck's speech is colorful, metaphorical, rhythmical, economical, and poetic. He knows how to paint a scene and convey a sense of character as well as any other narrator I can think of. He's one of the unique voices in literature. He comes across as part savage, part sensitive soul; as half shrewd and half naive; as a boy who takes action yet remains passive to other circumstances.
I agree, the language is an essential part of conveying the sense of this story and creating an impact. In the first 6 chapters I found the violence and the ignorance of Huck's 'pap' to be overwhelming. Pap's attitude toward schooling and how he comes to the conclusion that Huck thinks he is better than his pap because he can read made me shake my head. But this is about fear, in this case, pap's fear of what he does not understand and his way of dealing with fear is with big talk and drink and violence. I'm not sure what will happen next but I'm rooting for Huck Finn.
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