So what I thought disregarded racism, really wasn't. It still is about overcoming, overall. Making a name for a race. But fighting to be a human being. I assumed all the readings linked to early industrialization. Guess I was sort of stumped as well.
I think how Washington and Du Bois differed was one (Washington) wanted blacks to integrate with all races in the educational field while Du Bois sought to segregate blacks by educating them.
Maybe in-class discussions will further educate me on the differences.

I think that it's great, the invent of night school. It gives those a chance to learn who work all day.
As far as Booker T. goes, well he was a martyr of his time. Way ahead of the rest. And to think of it, he was an African American. What a concept for a man of color to construct an educational institution, and to let women enter into it as well.
The one thing that caught my eye in the readings was Washington's establishment of a night school. I feel that modern society has overlooked the hardships and endurance of people in that era suffered, black and white. Those people worked hard. It wasn't like they served the public by waiting tables or selling cheap merchandise. They helped build railroads and other hard labors. They overcame so much more. Modern society is based on convenience. Everything is about getting something quick rather it is a certificate in a study or food. No one has to really work for much. I blame most of that on technology. But it is early technology helped build America. Academia is such a wonderful thing. I feel that it separates ditch diggers from scientists. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Society needs all types of people to survive.
I thought I had it rough as I work full-time and attend college full-time. People in the late nineteenth century attended night school worked more than ten hours a day, and then went to school. How we, modern society, take that for granted.

I think that the ballad of John Henry was propaganda for late Nineteenth Century industrialization. After slavery was abolished in the late Nineteenth Century, as we know from history, industrialization boomed. This brought jobs to America and a dream. I feel that the legend of John Henry is all about the American dream.
Giving the mythological character super-human like qualities in my opinion was a sales pitch for the United States. Basically saying that America is tough. It is built on hard work, sweat, and muscle. That is the framework for our country.
Take for instance, Pittsburgh. Our beloved city. It was built on steel and iron. In the late 1960s-1970s, the industry progressed at such a high rate. This employed many people. Steel and iron were icons for the local sport's teams. Making their mascots reflect the thriving ores.
Of course it's a tall tale.The story of the ballad could have never happened. That just seems to far-fetched. I feel it was more symbolic than anything.
As far as the different versions of the song. They are, in my opinion, coming from different perspectives. Who originally wrote the song? As I took a look at all the different songwriters who mention John Henry, I see that white men (Bruce Springsteen and Johnny Cash) they were well known for songs about America and the hardships to be endured. But a blues singer like Led Belly sang about blacks and the hardships they endured. Overall, I feel that the ballad describes overcoming hardships entering the American dream.
I really do not see racism as an issue in John Henry.

I like the fact that Foster is saying that How to Read Literature Like a Professor is not a dictionary to look facts up nor is it a bible by literary law, but rather a book to further understand what we have been reading. At first, I thought that Foster came off as a pompous know-it-all. Then after I read the chapters, I realized that he is giving his opinions on literature as we do every Wednesday evening. This comes from a professor's point-of-view rather than a students, which is interesting, and informative.

Jim is an underestimated character in the book. This comes from the era, I feel. Southern slaves were not, as we have learned, treated all that bad. They were, in essence, part of the white family. The children of masters and slaves all played together, among other activities. So racism did not play a major role.
I have to admit, when the term "nigger" is used I automatically think of the era that AHF is placed. That eases the term a bit as that is what black Americans were referred to then. I did not match the term to racism automatically. There are instances of it throughout the book though.
Jim had a huge impact on the novel. If it were not for Jim, there would not have been Huck. And if the story only contained Huck, it would have been really boring. Jim was the adhesive between Huck and the adventure. Clemens even went as far as to add a family for Jim. That gave Jim a lead role in the book. Although Jim was a slave who was imprisoned, he still had a voice in the novel. There are several chapters where Jim plays a major role. So in fact, he does write a new destiny.
The ending is one that probably shocked many readers. The whole town wants to hang Jim, but the doctor basically says, hey! this man helped me when I thought Tom was going to die. The town then gains a new outlook on him. Jim becomes free at the end. The whole time he was free but didn't know it. Jim's destiny has finally been reached.

Anyone can read a book and be able to repeat back what has happened or tell what a character has done, but to be able to read between the lines takes a bit more to do.
The eyes are not the only organ to use when reading. The author has intentionally written a character in or added an environment to use as a background or a main theme. Using one's mind to look at what something means takes a certain focus.
This may sound weird, but when I read ADH, I read it aloud to my dog. I know, sounds really silly, but it worked. I used the voice of a southerner and a southern slave. This made ADH more understandable. It was like I was trying out for a play. And the book was more like a script.
So, I do agree with Foster in that the eyes are not the only thing to bring to a page when reading. There are so many more things, like I have mentioned above, to make reading more understandable. Think of the era, character, and demographic. I really taught myself a new way of learning by doing so.

I agree with this statement. Using a traditional train of thought leads us to a more modern understanding of the ending.
In my opinion, I think that Tom ignored Jim, using him as a prop for the adventure the he has concocted for Huck and himself. Tom takes advantage of Huck's morals in the last leg of Huck's adventure by taking over. By doing so, Huck comes out as the hero. As Tom is more of a villain. Tom realizes what he is doing. Not realizing any consequences. Example: Tom getting shot.
A more positive outcome is seen in the last chapter when Huck is told that he has six-thousand dollars waiting for him.
As for evading, well all the characters in ADH were evading something. Jim was evading enslavement. Tom escaped the enslavement of his abusive father. Tom escaped the enslavement of a simple mind.
Tom does re-enter the picture only to, in my opinion, ruin Huck's last adventure, thus spicing up the ending though. The adventures of Huckleberry Finn does not have an ending that is conventional. I agree with Marx. It should have ended with consequences, but rather happily ends. I was shocked myself. When I completed the novel, I put it down, frustrated that it ended on such a positive note.
During my reading, I thought that Jim should have been caught and killed more than once, and Huck beaten or imprisoned for his lies. Tom being the antagonist in the story, going against all that Huck wants and stands for, morals. I think that Huck was attempting to mature morally, but when Tom enters, he takes his vivid mind and leads Huck and Jim on an adventure where it nearly costs Jim and Huck their lives. But it was Tom who really got it in the end by nearly dying.
Finales and endings are really up to the author/ director. I remember the last episode of The Sopranos. In my opinion, it sucked. I was so angry that I watched the show from season one. But then I thought about it after several conversations with fans, like myself. David Chase ended the show on a positive note because he realized that the subject matter was the mafia. As we all know, the mafia is all about violence and illegal doings. If Chase ended it with violence, that only meant that was all we, viewers, knew about mafias, not the positive side of the Don. The same goes with Clemens. He ended AHF the way he did because we, the reader, expected a negative outcome. It was shock value that everything ended optimistically. From Huck coming from abuse and Jim escaping his master lying and stealing their way throughout the Mississippi River on their adventure.

First of all, think about the era that these dime store novels occurred in. There was nothing to do for young boys except to idolize what they read in these particular books. Second, technology has really done genders wrong. Television caters to anyone, ESPN for men, TLC for women, LOGO for homosexuals, and BET for African-Americans. Genders and ethnicities are placed accordingly. It is not only just television, but other mediums as well. Maybe I have strayed from my point, but I want to focus on the role of males in society. Dime novels were only for young males. Look at male-driven things, as society usually stereotypes them: sports, cowboys and Indians, organized crime, construction work, tattoos, etc...
You do not really see a lot of women in these fields, until recently. The bad boy image still holds strong in the Twentieth First Century. What started from a novel glorifying cowboys has developed into larger things like a separation of genders as I mentioned in the latter. Okay, okay, since Mallioux wrote this on AHF, I will use Huck as an example. Huck is a poster child for young men to idolize just as the movie The Outsiders was for me when I was young. I remember carrying around a pocket knife and wearing tattered clothing trying to resemble the character Pony Boy. In my eyes, he was so cool, back then.
Mimicking a character that is stapled as a "bad boy" is addictive. Look at all the sub genres that were constructed from that: hippies, punks, gangsters, and many more.
Mallioux's essay was informative that led me to my own conclusions on the "bad boy" development.

I tend to agree with Foster. In reality, we feel for a person that has been stricken with an immediate illness. We do not look back at their lives until they are deceased. What I'm trying to say is, in literature, us, the reader, has to be educated in a sort of back story in order to understand what is currently going on. In reality, hearing that Mr. Johnson was diagnosed with cancer, we instantly become sympathetic towards him.
The author has to create the illness. Build their character before giving he/she a diagnosis. Look, for instance, at Arthur Dimmsdale in The Scarlet Letter. He constantly holds his hand over his heart. Although he is older, I automatically thought that he had some kind of condition. It turns out that it was more metaphoric. I would not have realized this if I had not read the novel in its entirety.

Maybe it's just me, but I see this happen when Tom enters the story. All of a sudden when Tom enters, he tends to take over Huck's adventure. The quote I used is just an example of this. Tom finds a way to get to Jim. It appears that he does not let Huck think for himself. Tom, all of a sudden, becomes the protagonist. This leaves Huck to validate all that Tom says and does. Tom says that instead of using shovels to get to Jim, use case-knives.
While I never got the chance, yet, to read the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, I really do not know Tom Sawyer like I got to know Huck Finn. But Tom steals the limelight from Huck.
So I wanted to know what case-knives are. Silly me. They are nothing more than pocket knives. I guess I wasn't the only one that did not know what they were. In Chapter 36, Tom asks Huck to hand him a case-knife. "' Gimmee a case-knife'". Huck didn't know either. "I didn't know just what to do-but then I thought. I scratched around amongst the old tools, and got a pick-axe and gave it to him, and he took it and went to work, and never said a word." Old Southern slang in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are hard to understand as I am, obviously, used to modern English nor have I ever lived in the South. If it were not for the glossary in the back of my book, I would not know what some of the words being used are. Case-knives are not in the glossary, by the way.

I really began to feel sorry for Jim. He is always on the look-out for Huck and his safety; although Jim escaping from his slavery. Huck likes to torment Jim. I can understand this as Huck is a young man on an adventure, but all Jim sees in Huck is a true friend. Why would he do such a thing?
Answer: Huck is escaping his terrible life from his father as Jim is escaping Miss Watson's grasp. Huck, more than likely, is not used to someone else caring for him as Jim does. Does Huck really care if Jim makes it, considering Jim is a slave, and Huck was being taken care of by Jim's master?
Answer: I feel that Huck is just immature. He is attempting to live vicariously through Tom Sawyer's. The beginning of the novel, Tom puts together this club which is lived through his vivid imagination. Huck, in my opinion, is really acting Tom's imagination out loud with his wild river adventure.
I have to say that I really like the fact that the novel navigates us, the reader, up and down the Mississippi River. I have seen the Mighty Mississippi River quite a few times, and it is really big. Although I am not an cartographer, I use my memory of the river to guess where the two are at during their wild escapade.

- Depth

- Interaction

- Discussions

- Timeliness

- Xenoblogging

- Wild Card

-G-20 Vomit

-Foster (Ch. 13-15)

- Poe selections

- Foster (Ch. 18, 19, 20)

- Uncle Tom's Cabin (Aiken)

- Walden (Thoreau)

- Poe selections

- Foster (Ch. 18, 19, 20)