Reader Response 2: Huck Finn (7-13)

Tom Sawyer has influenced Huck because Huck looks up to Tom. “He’d call it an adventure – that’s what he called it; and he’d land on that wreck if it was his last act.” (Chapter 12, Page 50, Paragraph 3) Huck is doing things so that he can impress Tom or so that he can say that he is like Tom. I think that Huck doing things that Tom does isn’t really a positive influence because when Huck does things to be like Tom, he ends up in trouble.

Widow Douglas has influenced Huck because although he doesn’t usually choose the right thing to do, he knows what it is. Sometimes he realizes that he is doing something that the Widow Douglas doesn’t like, but he wants to do it so he does it anyway. “I had stopped cussing because the widow didn’t like it; but now I took it up again because pap hadn’t no objections.” (Chapter 6, Page 18, Paragraph 3) I think that the influence that the Widow Douglas is putting on Huck is a positive influence because he is learning how to be respectful and how to be a good person.

Pap has influenced Huck because Huck does things just to not be like Pap, or to make him mad. “I didn’t want to go to school much, before, but I reckoned I’d go now to spite pap.” (Chapter 6, Page 17, Paragraph 1) Throughout the book whenever a conversation about whiskey is brought up, Huck always says how he doesn’t like it and would never drink it and gives various reasons why. I think that the influence that Pap is giving him is positive and negative. It is negative because Pap makes Huck think that certain things that he does is okay to do like smoke and cuss. It is positive because some things that Pap does like smoke, it makes Huck realize that he doesn’t want to do it.

Jim has influenced Huck because Huck and Jim are friends and he listens to what he says. “Jim said he reckoned that the widow was partly right and Pap was partly right; so the best way would be for us to pick two or three things from the list and say we wouldn’t borrow them anymore – then he reckoned it wouldn’t be no harm to borrow the others.” (Chapter 12, Page 49, Paragraph 3) I think that Jim is a positive influence because Jim is teaching him things that he doesn’t know and watches out for him like he is his son.