"It might answer for you to dig Jim out with a pick, without any letting-on, because you don't know no better; but it wouldn't for me, because I do know better. Gimme a case-knife." - Tom Saywer
~page 283 of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
I loved the irony in this section of the novel--the segment where Tom Sawyer rejoins the cast of characters. Tom constantly keeps going on about how he knows everything and Huck doesn't know anything when, in reality, it is the exact opposite. Huck is the smarter one of the two, because he lets common sense guide him as opposed to letting events in fictional books guide him as Tom does. I wonder if this was Twain's way of dealing with the common sense vs. book smarts issue. Regardless of the reason, the irony is there, and it was amusing to read.
Comments (1)
I thought this was very interesting also. Tom was also very hesitant to accept the idea of Huck when he suggested an easier, better way.
Posted by Jamie Grace | October 28, 2009 4:13 PM
Posted on October 28, 2009 16:13