These next couple chapters are all about Huck and his relationship to his father, who he calls Pap. He doesn't have a great relationship with his father because of how Pap is perpetually drunk on whiskey or hungover from being drunk. Pap comes into Huck's room and beats him for going to school, for, supposedly, trying to be better than Pap and Huck's mother. Pap is not the ideal father figure and, I'm suspecting, that's how Huck ended up in the care of the Widow and Miss Watson.
Pap steals Huck away from the Widow's house and takes him out into the woods with him and there they live off the land, and Huck is trapped there. One night, Huck is locked in the hut while Pap goes into town to buy whiskey and Pap comes back, highly intoxicated, and starts ranting about the government that they have at this time. Keeping in mind that the times are very different, and this is pre-Civil War, so slavery is not yet abolished. Pap rants about how, when he was in town, there was a free black man from Ohio that is walking around, and he is very upset about that. He says "They said he could vote when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was 'lection day, and I was just about to and vote myself if I warn't too drink to get there; but when they told me there was a state in this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote again"(Twain 27). Pap is clearly very unhappy with how the government is being run, and who is in charge.
From my viewpoint, Pap is hugely over reacting, a drunk who beats his child should not be allowed to vote on the leader of our nation. Taking into consideration that most black people were considered property to most white people, I can understand where he was coming from. The concept of people owning other people was not considered to be inappropriate or wrong to him, that was what they had always done. But now, in our time period, to even think of owning another person, is disgusting, as it should be.
I also feel that Pap is in the wrong because the people in the government get into the position they're in due to the people voting for them. Undeniably, Pap has never heard of the concept of Popular Sovereignty, which means the Government officials are put into office at the consent of the people. He went on the rant about the Government itself, "They call that a govment that can't sell a free nigger till he;s been in the state six months. Here's a govment that calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks its a govment, and yet's got to set stick-still for six whole months before it can take a-hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger..." (Twain 27). In all actuality, Pap is complaining about the Government's ability to follow the rules, because he thinks that they should be able to break them and do whatever they please. What Pap doesn't understand, is that the leader of our nation should, and is, following the rules that were made, and demonstrating to the citizens, how a leader should act.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Bantam Dell 1981.
Pap steals Huck away from the Widow's house and takes him out into the woods with him and there they live off the land, and Huck is trapped there. One night, Huck is locked in the hut while Pap goes into town to buy whiskey and Pap comes back, highly intoxicated, and starts ranting about the government that they have at this time. Keeping in mind that the times are very different, and this is pre-Civil War, so slavery is not yet abolished. Pap rants about how, when he was in town, there was a free black man from Ohio that is walking around, and he is very upset about that. He says "They said he could vote when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was 'lection day, and I was just about to and vote myself if I warn't too drink to get there; but when they told me there was a state in this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote again"(Twain 27). Pap is clearly very unhappy with how the government is being run, and who is in charge.
From my viewpoint, Pap is hugely over reacting, a drunk who beats his child should not be allowed to vote on the leader of our nation. Taking into consideration that most black people were considered property to most white people, I can understand where he was coming from. The concept of people owning other people was not considered to be inappropriate or wrong to him, that was what they had always done. But now, in our time period, to even think of owning another person, is disgusting, as it should be.
I also feel that Pap is in the wrong because the people in the government get into the position they're in due to the people voting for them. Undeniably, Pap has never heard of the concept of Popular Sovereignty, which means the Government officials are put into office at the consent of the people. He went on the rant about the Government itself, "They call that a govment that can't sell a free nigger till he;s been in the state six months. Here's a govment that calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks its a govment, and yet's got to set stick-still for six whole months before it can take a-hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger..." (Twain 27). In all actuality, Pap is complaining about the Government's ability to follow the rules, because he thinks that they should be able to break them and do whatever they please. What Pap doesn't understand, is that the leader of our nation should, and is, following the rules that were made, and demonstrating to the citizens, how a leader should act.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Bantam Dell 1981.