Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The Supernatural Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the ground, and I seen somebody's tracks. They had come up from the quarry and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden fence. It was funny they hadn't come in, after standing around so. I couldn't make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was going to follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didn't notice anything at first, but next I did. There was a cross in the left boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil. (4.4)

Huck’s father is also a superstitious man. Check out our "Character Analysis" of Pap for more on him.

Quote #5

Miss Watson's n*****, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here again, for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was, what he was going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor. (4.21)

Jim is Huck’s main source of superstitious beliefs.

Quote #6

Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and listened again. This time he said the hair-ball was all right. He said it would tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. (4.22)

Jim and Huck are both rendered vulnerable by their superstitions. Superstitious beliefs are something that they both believe in to explain what they otherwise find inexplicable. Huck and Jim follow their superstitious beliefs blindly; they must obey the rules, or else be punished.