I had been to school most all the time, and could spell, and read, and release just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get all further than that if I was to give way forever (Twain 38).
For huckaback, education is entirely valuable so farther as it is practical, and if he cannot use it immediately and directly, he sees no need to know it. His knowledge is entirely pragmatic, and as much(prenominal) he cuts through to the essentials in life.
The contrast Twain creates through Huck is the contrast between American pragmatism and European romanticistic idealism, and Tom Sawyer represents the latter. Tom is an overpowering straw man when he is on the scene and imposes his view of the world, a passing romantic view, on his friend. Huck, however, even as he participates in Tom's recreations of the novels of Sir Walter Scott, always has a certain piratical sense that keeps him from intrust the reality of the code of value that Tom is always t break throughing as necessary for heroic action.
The nature of the contrast between American realism and European romanticism serves as an undercurrent throughout this novel. Early in the journey subdue the river, Huck and Jim deduce upon two robbers looting the wrecked "Walter Scott," and the name of the v
G. Innate moral sense vs. the codes of others
essel refers to the great romantic novelist Sir Walter Scott, whose adventure novels are the epitome of what Twain criticizes about European society. Huck and Jim do not engage in any false heroics when confronted with these criminals. Instead, they pragmatically cut loose the skiff and float away. It is world-shaking that part of the loot left on the skiff is a company of books filled with the same sort of stories made famous by Sir Walter Scott.
While Huck responds to interactions with real people, Tom derives his knowledge of pitying behavior from European romances. Tom gets Huck to go on because of the force of his (Tom's) personality, not because he ever gets Huck to believe in his sources.
This is another example of comparing human experiential learning to book learning, and in any case, Tom only half learns what the books have to offer:
A. Huck's education vs. book-learning
Twain, Mark. Huckleberry Finn. in The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Volume 2, Nina Baym, Wayne Franklin, Ronald Gottesman, Laurence B. Holland, David Kalstone, Arnold Krupat, Francis Murphy, Hershel Parker, William H. Pritchard, and Patricia B. Wallace (eds.). New York: W.W. Norton, 1994. 29-214.
Much of the trip down the river will bring Huck into interactions with others who profess to live by a code that sets them apart from others and makes them more noble, more virtuous, and more honest. The education that Huck gets shows him that most of these people are hollow, that their codes of honor are false, that they are hypocritical about the values they necessitate to believe, and that those who represent the civilization the Widow Douglas has been trying to get him to colligate are not the role models they have been made out to be.
Huck's insights into human behavior are entirely based on experience, are entirely pragmatic, and are entirely real.
The experience with the Duke and the Dauphin exposes Huck to anoth
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