In the last few chapters we read, Huck managed to fake his death successfully and meet up with Jim on Jackson Isle; the place where Huck decided to live after he disappeared. All he had to do was make it look like a robber or two barged in from the back of the cabin, stole food and other valuables, broke into the shed, and killed Huck himself. He found and killed a pig, used its blood to dirty up his jacket, and left it behind. Huck then left a trail of food leading in the opposite direction that he ran off into to lead away the search party the next morning. While the search party was attempting to use all sorts of wives tales to find the supposed dead body, Huck had left for the island and avoided being discovered with ease. In the end, the main two myths that they tried were those of cannon fire raising a dead body to the surface of water and bread with mercury with lead to a body. The below is a link to a small-ish report that de-bunks those two myths.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2092/will-shooting-a-cannon-cause-a-drowned-body-to-rise-to-the-surface
In the end of this, with Huck and Jim uniting on the island to work as a team for survival, I think that Samuel Clemens was very creative with the references to obscure myths and unique tales of escape. I doubt he could have done a better job with describing how both Huck and Jim separately escaped to freedom without a trace.
No comments:
Post a Comment