Huckleberry Finn

I was thinking today about what Menna said on Monday in class about how superstition and secular thinking were generally attributed to the African-American race around the time that Twain was writing about in Huck Finn. That statement really resonated for me when I looked back at the beginning of the work and saw that Huck and Jim's relationship was largely successful because they were both so superstitious. I also thought it was interesting how Huck and Jim are juxtaposed against Miss Watson and what this might say about religion and civility. When Miss Watson tries to turn Huck on to religion, he refuses to see the utility of prayer when he says on page 79 that he "couldn't see no advantage about it - except for the other people - so at last I reckoned I wouldn't worry about it any more, but just let it go." It seems to me that despite Miss Watson's efforts, Huck did not pick up on prayer or religion because he failed to recognize that prayer served any useful purpose for himself. On the other hand, when Jim presents his ideas about superstition to Huck, he quickly attaches to the idea because it is based on principles of individual action and personal gain or loss. For instance, when Jim warns Huck about him picking up the snake skin, Huck seems reverent towards Jim for imparting this advice on him that will be entirely useful in the future. For me, it seems like Miss Watson's attempts to convert Huck were a part of a larger effort to civilize Huck and make him a respectable piece of the whole of society. I think that Twain here is recognizing the link between religion and popular society and is somewhat satirizing the multi-functional duties of religion in the antebellum South. When you look at the overall work, I think that Twain is certainly attributing the superstitious to the African race, but he is also making important observations about how both blacks and whites manipulate the institution of religion to serve their own interests.