Rafting nostalgic

We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft. 1

I’ve just finished rereading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain, 1884) and found it a far richer read than my first attempt back in junior high. It’s a pretty simple narrative that winds the reader down a river of subtle (and not so subtle) metaphor with smartly written caricatures of good guys and bad guys interwoven with golden and dark periods of our country’s history.

[While the language in the original text makes any reader with modern sensibilities cringe, I’m on the side believing that “sanitizing” literature can be as abhorrent as hate speech. This post isn’t about the book’s specific verbiage – for a survey of thoughts from much smarter people, see: http://blogs.chapman.edu/happenings/2011/01/06/a-politically-correct-huck-finn-chapman-scholars-weigh-in/]

For me, this book contains two standout lessons from Mr. Twain. The first is Huck’s moral development where he rejects the lessons of an evil father (reinforced by society in general) and comes to view his travel companion Jim not as property, but as a friend deserving of his help and affection. The second comes from a narrative that could be used as a case study in any business class.

To the first: in Huck’s world, the societal norm was to treat slaves as property. For a white citizen to abet a slave’s escape was anathema. Consequences would include being ostracized and perhaps even legal action would ensue.

A real life story to this point involves Kentucky slave chasers in pursuit of escaped slave Adam Crosswhite and his family in one of my favorite Michigan cities, Marshall. After arresting the slave chasers and helping the Crosswhite family into Canada, citizens of Marshall were convicted of “depriving a man of his rightful property” in Detroit federal court (1847). They paid their fines with honor (http://www.marshallmi.org/information.taf?section=history).

Huck’s dilemma was that he “knew” it was a sin to help Jim. He was so disturbed that his natural inclination was to help his friend that he considered himself wicked – believing that he couldn't even pray until doing the “right thing” i.e., betray Jim to the slave hunters. Huck, as Twain masterfully portrays, hedges his bets and writes a letter that will lead to Jim’s capture. But, Huck . . .

. . .went on thinking. And got to 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. 2

There are those who argue that there is neither absolute good nor evil; that what society collectively wants is sufficient for moral order. I’m unconvinced. That thinking justifies America’s slavery history, The Holocaust, and many other examples home and abroad. While I don’t pretend to know all right and wrong (I didn’t get a bite of Eve’s apple!), I’m confident that there are eternal goods and infernal evils.

On a much lighter note, the narrative describing Huck and Tom Sawyer’s contrasting plans for Jim’s escape suggests more than one parallel to modern bureaucracy.

Jim is being held in a locked shed with minimal security waiting for his “rightful” owner (who isn’t coming) to claim him. Huck suggests his plan and Tom Sawyer responds:

"My plan is this," I says. "We can easy find out if it's Jim in there. Then get up my canoe tomorrow night, and fetch my raft over from the island. Then the first dark night that comes steal the key out of the old man's britches after he goes to bed, and shove off down the river on the raft with Jim, hiding daytimes and running nights, the way me and Jim used to do before. Wouldn't that plan work?"

"WORK? [Tom responds] Why, cert'nly it would work, like rats a-fighting. But it's too blame' simple; there ain't nothing TO it. What's the good of a plan that ain't no more trouble than that? It's as mild as goose-milk. Why, Huck, it wouldn't make no more talk than breaking into a soap factory." 3

Tom proceeds to conjure up over-the-top romantic notions of the toils an escaping prisoner must face before he has a proper escape. These plans included making tools, digging through hard pack, scrawling insignia, and populating the shed with vermin to create the correct atmosphere. Tom’s plan delays the escape for weeks, causes significant hardship on Jim, and results in a bullet wound to Tom (which, of course, he cherishes as part of the rightful process). In other words, bureaucracy in action.

This was a good read. Both nostalgic and enriching, it’s whetted my appetite for more trips down the classics aisle at the Kindle store.

1 Twain, Mark (2009-06-30). Classic American Literature: The Works of Mark Twain, 24 books in a single file, improved 6/1/2011 (Kindle Locations 23033-23034). B&R Samizdat Express. Kindle Edition.

2 Twain, Mark (2009-06-30). Classic American Literature: The Works of Mark Twain, 24 books in a single file, improved 6/1/2011 (Kindle Locations 25294-25305). B&R Samizdat Express. Kindle Edition.

3 Twain, Mark (2009-06-30). Classic American Literature: The Works of Mark Twain, 24 books in a single file, improved 6/1/2011 (Kindle Locations 25783-25789). B&R Samizdat Express. Kindle Edition.

Image of Mark Twain reported to be in the public domain and available at http://www.wpclipart.com/famous/writer/Twain/Mark_Twain.png.html