Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Rules and Order Quotes Page 1
Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
| Quote #1 The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn't really anything the matter with them (1.3) |
Huck finds the rules of civilization to be petty and useless.
| Quote #2 So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band. And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be killed. And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the list with blood and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot forever. (2.10) |
Although Tom’s rules are just as ridiculous as the widow’s, Huck initially fails to find fault with them.
| Quote #3 [Tom Sawyer:] "Why, blame it all, we've GOT to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books, and get things all muddled up?" (2.26) |
While Tom has his own set of rules separate from the widow or society’s approval, his rules are still strictly enforced without any sensible explanation. Tom’s structure of order is an interesting parallel to society’s system of approval and disapproval. Think about it: who actually makes society’s "rules"? There isn’t one person who makes them up. So while Tom has personally made up his own system of rules, it’s hard for the boys to see how they are any different from the seemingly random rules that society follows.
