Weekly Reading Response #2

Name: Alex Barnes
Date: 2-11-10
Book: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Author: Mark Twain
Pages: 44-97
Total Pages This Week: 53

How did what you read make you feel? Why?

A lot of what I read was about Huck and Jim's adventure up the Mississippi. It made me feel excited imagining being in their positions of nearly being killed by the weather and caught by the slave catchers. In what I read Huck is questioning the morality of helping Jim escape. Huck explains to himself helping Jim as being wrong because Jim is someone's property and therefore he is helping steal. It just seems so strange that someone would even think of someone as property today. We forget what it was like back then. I wanted to feel angry at Huck but I couldn't because I realized he wasn't thinking like that on purpose. It was just how some people thought back then. In comparison to others of the time Huck is actually very accepting.

Explain how the author creates suspense in the book.

Mark Twain creates suspense by having close calls for both Huck and Jim. At one point Huck goes into town to find out what's going on. He is supposed to be dead so he disguises himself as a girl when he goes into town. Then the lady he's talking to realizes he isn't a girl. Mark Twain builds all kinds of suspense by making you wonder what she's going to do to Huck. Also Huck and Jim go onto a crashed river boat during a storm. They walk through the cabins and hear two men talking about murdering another man who is tied up on board. A lot of suspense is built wondering if they'll find Huck and if they do what they'll do to him. Not to mention when Huck and Jim try to leave they find their boat has been torn loose from the river boat. Instead they steal the contemplating murders' boat and go off upriver.