An Analysis Of Two Key Passages In 'The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn'
Examination of Two Key Passages in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
This assignment is meant to prepare you for the second World Literature paper (2c) that will be assigned in your senior year. You need to be exposed to the specific kinds of papers on which you will be assessed in the future. Junior year is the time when you learn the basics of analysis and commentary. In senior year, you will refine these skills, increase your sophistication as a reader and a writer, and then be tested on your abilities. In this assignment, I am giving you the two passages to compare; next year, you will have to select the passage(s) on your own.
An analysis of two key passages from the same work may be “selected to explore, for example, contrasting …show more content…
prose styles, descriptive method, character presentation and a range of other aspects. The candidate needs to justify briefly the pivotal nature of the passages chosen and to demonstrate their particular similarities and differences…” (taken from The IBO Diploma Programme Language A1 booklet.) IBO goes on to describe the tasks involved in examining two key passages. Your paper should address and answer the following:
Key Passages:
Why are these passages central to our understanding of the work?
Why are they key passages?
Analysis:
Explain why these passages can be seen as characteristic of the writer’s central concerns and/or techniques.
Explain how the two passages are pivotal: i.e. how they cause the plot or character to pivot or turn from one direction to another. Explain differences and similarities in the passages. Explain why the passages are central to our understanding of the work.
Focus OUTWARDS on the larger work [the novel as a whole] from which the passages have been taken, to show their relationship to the development of the plot, and to examine what they show about elements such as theme, style, and …show more content…
characters.
Passage #1:
Tom he made a sign to me—kind of a little noise with his mouth—and we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off, Tom whispered to me and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun; but I said no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they’d find out I warn’t in. Then Tom said he hadn’t got candles enough, and he would slip into the kitchen and get some more. I didn’t want him to resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was all in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything so still and lonesome.
As soon as Tom was back, we cut along the path, around the garden fence, and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim’s hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn’t wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn’t hardly notice the other niggers.
Passage #2:
I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray, now.
But I didn’t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking; thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking; thinking over our trip down the river, and I see Jim before me, all the time, in the day, and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a floating along, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow, I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, stead of calling me—so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around, and see that
paper.
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:
“All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up.
The prompt:
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain constructs two key passages that demonstrate the change which Huck undergoes. Explain why these are considered key passages, what they show about character, and how they contribute to our understanding of the novel as a whole. Your focus then, is to examine differences, similarities, and to explain how these passages affect the entire novel.
You will not be quoting extensively from either passage. Limit your quotes to brief sentences or partial quotes. This essay should consist almost entirely of your own analysis, not concrete details. You do not need to summarize events or quote large amounts; in fact, you shouldn’t. In addition, for this particular essay, I do not want you to access outside information. You should not consult critics or prepare a Works Cited page. This needs to be your thinking and your analysis.
All papers are required to have a WORD COUNT listed at the end of the paper. Papers should not be fewer than 800 words and should not exceed 1000 words.
This assignment is meant to prepare you for the second World Literature paper (2c) that will be assigned in your senior year. You need to be exposed to the specific kinds of papers on which you will be assessed in the future. Junior year is the time when you learn the basics of analysis and commentary. In senior year, you will refine these skills, increase your sophistication as a reader and a writer, and then be tested on your abilities. In this assignment, I am giving you the two passages to compare; next year, you will have to select the passage(s) on your own.
An analysis of two key passages from the same work may be “selected to explore, for example, contrasting …show more content…
prose styles, descriptive method, character presentation and a range of other aspects. The candidate needs to justify briefly the pivotal nature of the passages chosen and to demonstrate their particular similarities and differences…” (taken from The IBO Diploma Programme Language A1 booklet.) IBO goes on to describe the tasks involved in examining two key passages. Your paper should address and answer the following:
Key Passages:
Why are these passages central to our understanding of the work?
Why are they key passages?
Analysis:
Explain why these passages can be seen as characteristic of the writer’s central concerns and/or techniques.
Explain how the two passages are pivotal: i.e. how they cause the plot or character to pivot or turn from one direction to another. Explain differences and similarities in the passages. Explain why the passages are central to our understanding of the work.
Focus OUTWARDS on the larger work [the novel as a whole] from which the passages have been taken, to show their relationship to the development of the plot, and to examine what they show about elements such as theme, style, and …show more content…
characters.
Passage #1:
Tom he made a sign to me—kind of a little noise with his mouth—and we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off, Tom whispered to me and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun; but I said no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they’d find out I warn’t in. Then Tom said he hadn’t got candles enough, and he would slip into the kitchen and get some more. I didn’t want him to resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was all in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything so still and lonesome.
As soon as Tom was back, we cut along the path, around the garden fence, and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim’s hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn’t wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn’t hardly notice the other niggers.
Passage #2:
I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray, now.
But I didn’t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking; thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking; thinking over our trip down the river, and I see Jim before me, all the time, in the day, and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a floating along, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow, I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, stead of calling me—so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around, and see that
paper.
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:
“All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up.
The prompt:
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain constructs two key passages that demonstrate the change which Huck undergoes. Explain why these are considered key passages, what they show about character, and how they contribute to our understanding of the novel as a whole. Your focus then, is to examine differences, similarities, and to explain how these passages affect the entire novel.
You will not be quoting extensively from either passage. Limit your quotes to brief sentences or partial quotes. This essay should consist almost entirely of your own analysis, not concrete details. You do not need to summarize events or quote large amounts; in fact, you shouldn’t. In addition, for this particular essay, I do not want you to access outside information. You should not consult critics or prepare a Works Cited page. This needs to be your thinking and your analysis.
All papers are required to have a WORD COUNT listed at the end of the paper. Papers should not be fewer than 800 words and should not exceed 1000 words.