Huckleberry Finn Passage Analysis

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Mark Twain achieves his purpose of describing the natural world in the passage, “Miss Watson she kept … Tom Sawyer waiting for me” (2-3), in the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The purpose of this passage was to show how the night reflects the loneliness in Huckleberry’s life by using imagery, diction, and tone.
The imagery Mark Twain uses in the beginning of this passage helps to achieve describing the night in comparison to how Huckleberry feels. To begin with the beginning of this section of the passage, “I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die” (7-9). Being able to hear the owl, Huckleberry can almost feel the “who-whooing” affecting …show more content…

This section states, “Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town go boom-boom-boom-twelve lick; and all still again-stiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down in the dark amongst the trees-something was a-stirring” (29-32). Talking about the stillness of the house after the “boom-boom-boom” was a severe contrast between the noise of the bell tower and the silence of the night. This silence amplifies Huckleberry’s anxiety to being alone in his life. Also, the “twig snap down in the dark”, shows how Huckleberry is affecting by being alone in the house, and in his life, very jumpy and unsure of what’s ahead. Through the end, Twain achieves his purpose of showing Huckleberry’s …show more content…

In the middle of the passage it says, “Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that’s on its mind and can’t make itself understood, and so can’t rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving” (11-15). This quote shows how solemn Huckleberry thinks the night is and how that same solemness is in Huckleberry’s own life, through his father not being there and foreshadowing his own “death”. This also helps to achieve the purpose because it creates a way for Huckleberry to mourn his loneliness through the ghost that “wants to tell about something that’s on its mind and can’t make itself understood”. This reflects the way Huckleberry has something on his mind, but cannot express it because he has very few people in his life who he feels he can confide in. Using a solemn tone, Twain creates his purpose in the middle of the passage.
In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huckleberry’s loneliness in his life is reflected by Mark Twain’s description of the natural world at night. Twain achieves of his purpose of this loneliness in Huckleberry’s life by using imagery, diction, and

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