Huckleberry Finn is a companion piece to Tom Sawyer, but a companion piece in reverse, a mirror image; it is the American un-succe...ss story, the story that had been embodied in Leatherstocking, proclaimed by Thoreau, and was again to be embodied in Ike McCaslin of Faulkner's The Bear, the drama of the innocent outside of society. Tom's story ends once he has been reclaimed by society, but Huck's real story does not even begin until he has successfully penetrated the world of respectability and, in the well-meaning clutches of the Widow and Miss Watson, begins to chafe under the ministrations.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Ransom Stoddard: I don't wanna gun. I don't wanna gun. I don't wanna kill 'em. I wanna put 'em in jail. Tom Donophon: Well, I... know those law books mean a lot to you. But not out here. Out here a man settles his own problems. Ransom Stoddard: No. Do, do you know what you're saying to me? D'you know? You're saying exactly what Liberty Valance said. What kind of community have I come to. You all seem to know about this fellow Liberty Valance. He's a no-good, gun-packing murdering thief. But the only advice you can give to me is to carry a gun. Well, I'm a lawyer. Ransom Stoddard, attorney at law. And the law is the only, the only.... [he collapses]LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There was a time we was on the land. There was a boundary to us then. Old folks died off and little fellers come. We was always on...e thing. We was the family, kinda whole and clear. But now we ain't clear no more. There ain't nothin' that keeps us clear. Al, he's a hankerin' and a jibberin' to be on his own. John's just draggin' around, Pa's lost his place. He ain't the lead no more. We're crackin' up, Tom. They ain't no family now.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Tom was a glittering hero once more--the pet of the old, the envy of the young. His name even went into immortal print, for the vi...llage paper magnified him. There were some that believed he would be President, yet, if he escaped hanging.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Tom took his whipping and went back to his seat not at all broken-hearted, for he thought it was possible that he had unknowingly ...upset the ink on the spelling-book himself, in some skylarking bout--he had denied it for form's sake and because it was custom, and had stuck to the denial from principle.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As the two boys walked sorrowing along, they made a new compact to stand by each other and be brothers and never separate till dea...th relieved them of their troubles. Then they began to lay their plans. Joe was for being a hermit, and living on crusts in a remote cave, and dying, some time, of cold, and want, and grief; but after listening to Tom, he conceded that there were some conspicuous advantages about a life of crime, and so he consented to be a pirate.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What a hero Tom was become now! He did not go skipping and prancing, but moved with a dignified swagger as became a pirate who fel...t that the public eye was on him.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »