Superstitions in Huckleberry Finn

Essay by adgairHigh School, 12th gradeB, December 2002

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In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain,

there is a lot of superstition. Some examples of superstition in the

novel are Huck killing a spider which is bad luck, the hair-ball used

to tell fortunes, and the rattle-snake skin Huck touches that brings

Huck and Jim good and bad luck. Superstition plays an important role

in the novel Huck Finn.

In Chapter one Huck sees a spider crawling up his shoulder, so

he flipped it off and it went into the flame of the candle. Before he

could get it out, it was already shriveled up. Huck didn't need

anyone to tell him that it was an bad sign and would give him bad

luck. Huck got scared and shook his clothes off, and turned in his

tracks three times. He then tied a lock of his hair with a thread to

keep the witches away.

"You do that when you've lost a horseshoe that

you've found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn't

ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep of bad luck when you'd

killed a spider."(Twain 5).

In chapter four Huck sees Pap's footprints in the snow. So

Huck goes to Jim to ask him why Pap is here. Jim gets a hair-ball

that is the size of a fist that he took from an ox's stomach. Jim

asks the hair-ball; Why is Pap here? But the hair-ball won't answer.

Jim says it needs money, so Huck gives Jim a counterfeit quarter.

Jim puts the quarter under the hair-ball. The hair-ball talks to Jim

and Jim tells Huck that it says. "Yo'ole father doan' know yit what

he's a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he spec he'll go 'way, en den ag'in he

spec he'll...