Journal #8

So far in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn I have encountered many acts of violence. Some examples of these acts of violence include when the Duke and Dauphin were tarred and feathered, the countless altercations with the Shephardsons and Grangerfords, and the shooting of the drunken man by Sherburn. A lot of the violence present in the novel can be viewed as pointless, but I believe the violence was used by Mark Twain as a way of saying violence can correct things that are wrong. For example, the Duke and the Dauphin get tarred and feathered because they scammed some townspeople; if they didn’t do something wrong they would’ve never gotten tarred and feathered. Twain also uses violence in this novel to show the faultiness in people. For example, when Huck’s father almost tried to kill Huck, it shows how being a drunk is a bad thing. Overall, so far Twain has used violence many times in the novel which may allude to many things, but maybe he just used it in its simplest form, to be violence.