Episode 1-4

EPISODE 1: Pap Returns

Themes:

Superstition - when he kills the spider and his pa comes back

gullibility- when the gang charges after Sunday school kids believing that the elephants and the a-rabs.

The role of the outsider- when the lady teaches Huck about praying

                 

Characters:

Aunt Polly, Mary, Widow Douglas, tom, Judge Thatcher, Huck, pap, Tommy Barnes, miss Watson, Joe Harper, Ben Rogers, Jim

Summary:

In this episode Widow Douglas adopts Huck and she tries to teach Huck about manners and how to be polite.  She tries to tame him.  She also teaches him about the bible and how praying will help him.  Huck doesn't understand how praying will help him. He prays for a fishing pole and hooks and gets the pole but not the hooks and gets mad.  Then Huck meets up with Tom Sawyer and the two start a gang with Tommy, Joe Harper, and Ben Rogers.  They decide they are going to go rob a group of a-rabs that have elephants and camels that are stocked with diamonds.  Huck decides to go because he wants to see an elephant, but when they get there, there is no one there but Sunday school kids.  So they decide to rob the Sunday school kids, and then the teachers yell them at.  Then Huck asks Tom where the elephants and the A-rabs were, and Tom said they were there but they were cloaked by wizards.  Which just means that Tom was using his imagination where Huck was not as educated as him and didn't know what imagination was.  After that robbery the gang decided not to be a gang anymore.  Then Huck a few days later goes outside and finds footsteps that are his father's footsteps, and then Huck runs down and tells Judge Thatcher that he wants him to have all his money.  And he gives Judge Thatcher $6,000, but Judge Thatcher doesn't truly take the money but tells Huck he does.  Huck goes to Jim and asks Jim to have the hairball tell Jim Huck's future.  The hairball tells Huck complete nonsense, except he tells Huck to stay away from water.  Which is a foreshadow to a later chapter when Huck gets on the raft and sails the Mississippi River.  Then Huck finds out his papa isn't dead, and he is sitting in Huck's room.

EPISODE 2: The Cabin

Themes:

Death and rebirth – When Huck “Kills himself”

                 

Characters:

None new

Summary:

Huck arrives back at his room and sees his Pap sitting in a chair. Huck is no longer scared of Pap, and instead notes how old his father is. Pap harasses Huck and then, accuses Huck of acting better than his own father. Pap threatens to beat Huck if he ever catches him near the school again. He makes Huck hand over the dollar that Judge Thatcher "paid" him and then climbs out the window to go drinking in the town. The next day, Pap goes to Judge Thatcher and tries to make the Judge give him Huck's money. The Judge refuses, and he and the widow take a case to court in an effort to get Huck legally placed with one of them. The judge unfortunately refuses to separate Huck from his father. Judge Thatcher, realizing he cannot win, gives Huck some money, which Huck immediately turns over to Pap. Pap gets drunk and is placed in jail. Pap begins hanging out around the town and demands Huck give him money every few days. When the widow tells Pap to get away from her property, he kidnaps Huck and takes him to a log cabin. Huck enjoys being free from school but soon gets upset that he is being beaten so much. Searching for a way to escape, Huck discovers part of a saw that is missing its handle and starts to saw off a log in the rear corner of the cabin, but is forced to stop when Pap returns. Huck hopes to escape after Pap falls asleep, but Pap has a fitful night, and Huck is afraid he might wake up and catch him trying to get out of the cabin. Pap and Huck go out into the woods to hunt for game. While there, Huck sees an abandoned canoe on the river and jumps in to get it. Next, Huck fetches a wooden raft from the river with timber that is worth about ten dollars. Pap locks Huck into the cabin and takes the raft to town in order to sell it. Huck quickly finishes his sawing and climbs out of the cabin, taking everything worth any money to his canoe. He axes down the front door and goes hunting for game. Huck shoots a wild pig, butchers it inside the cabin, and spreads the blood on his shirt and the floor. He also carefully lays some of his hairs on the now bloody ax to make it appear as if he has been killed. Huck cuts open a sack of flour and marks a trail indicating that the killer left via a lake that does not connect to the river. Immediately, Huck jumps into the canoe and pushes off. He floats downstream until he reaches Jackson's Island. Huck wakes up on Jackson's Island late the next day and hears a cannon being fired. A ferryboat filled with his friends comes down the river firing a cannon in hopes of bringing his dead body to the surface. The search parties have also set loaves of bread filled with mercury afloat; believing the mercury and bread will be attracted to his body. After a few days, Huck begins exploring the island. He accidentally stumbles into a clearing with a still smoking campfire. Out of fear, he retreats to his campsite and paddles over to the Illinois side of the river. However, he soon returns for the night and sleeps poorly as he is overwhelmed with fear for who else might be on the island.

The next morning Huck decides to find out who else is on the island with him. He paddles his canoe down to the other campsite and hides in the brush. Soon he sees Jim. Out of joy for finding a friend on the island, Huck rushes out and greets him. Jim nearly dies when he sees Huck, whom he believes to be dead. Huck tells him the story about how he faked his murder. Jim relates that he overhead Miss Watson telling the widow that she was going to sell him down the river for a good sum of money. To avoid being sold, Jim ran away, and has been hiding out on Jackson's island. Jim starts to tell Huck about various superstitious signs which the slaves watch out for. When some birds go hopping along the ground, stopping every few feet, Jim comments that means it will rain soon.

Episode 3: The Island

Themes:

Rebirth - Jim escapes slavery and starts a new like as a free man. Huck escapes his father and becomes free.       Appearance vs. reality - Huck pretender to be two different people. Jim thinks Huck is a ghost when he is really alive.

                 

Characters:

Huck (Marry Sarah Williams & George Peters are aliases of Huck's own invention), Jim, Tom, Widow Douglas, Miss Watson, Judge Thatcher, Pap, and Mrs. Judith Loftus.

Summary:

The entire chapter is mostly spent on Jackson Island. It starts when Huck wakes up on the island after he had ran away from his father and faked his death. That morning a ferryboat passes the Island that has Pap, Judge Thatcher, Tom Sawyer, Tom’s aunt Polly, some of Huck’s young friends, and more on board, all discussing Huck’s murder. They shoot cannonballs over the water and float loaves of bread with quicksilver inside, in hopes of finding Huck’s corpse. Huck catches one of the loaves and eats it, but he feels guilty that he has upset those who care about him. Huck spends three days on the island, living on berries and fish. He spends his nights counting ferryboats and stars. On the fourth day, while exploring the island, Huck finds Jim, who at first thinks Huck is a ghost. Huck is happy he will not be alone on the island but shocked when Jim explains that he has run away. Jim says that he overheard Miss Watson discussing selling him for $800 to a slave trader who would take him to New Orleans. Jim and Huck talk about superstition, and Jim’s failed investments, most of which have been scams. Jim is not too disappointed by his failures, since he still has his hairy arms and chest, which, according to his superstitions, is a sign of future wealth. In order to make a hiding place should visitors arrive on the island, Jim and Huck take the canoe into a large cave in the on the island. The two safely wait it out a storm inside the cave. The river floods, and washes out a house down the river past the island. Inside, Jim and Huck find the body of a man who has been shot. Jim and Huck make off with some odds and ends from the house. Huck has Jim hide in the bottom of the canoe so that he won’t be seen, and they make it back to the island safely. Huck wonders about the dead man, but Jim warns that it’s bad luck. Huck already has bad luck by finding and handling a snake’s shed skin. Sure enough when Huck plays a joke by putting a dead rattlesnake in Jim's bed, its mate comes and bites Jim. Jim’s leg swells but gets better after several days of rest and whisky drinking. A while later, Huck decides to go ashore to get information about what has happened. Jim agrees, but has Huck disguise himself as a girl (Mary Sarah Williams), using one of the dresses they took from the house. Huck practices his girl impersonation and then goes for the Illinois shore. In a shack, he finds a woman who appears to be a newcomer to the town. Huck is relieved because she will not be able to recognize him. The woman lets Huck and he introduces himself as “Sarah Williams”. She reveals that Pap was a suspect in Huck's murder and that some townspeople nearly killed him. Then, people began to suspect Jim because he ran away the same day Huck was killed. This was because he spent the money the judge gave him to find Huck, on whiskey. Now there is a $200 reward for him. Meanwhile, there is a $300 bounty out for Jim. The woman has noticed smoke over Jackson’s Island and has told her husband to look for Jim there. He planed to go there tonight with another man and a gun. The woman looks at Huck suspiciously and asks his name. He says, “Marry Williams.” When the woman asks about the change, he tries saying his full name is “Marry Sarah Williams.” Finally, she asks him to reveal his real male identity, saying she understands that he is a runaway and she will not turn him in. Huck says his name is George Peters. She tells Huck to send for her, Mrs. Judith Loftus, if he has trouble. Back at the island, Huck builds a decoy campfire far from the cave and then returns to the cave to tell Jim they must leave. And so they did.

Episode 4: On the river

Themes:

Tolerance Vs. prejudice – Huck apologizes to Jim which is un heard of in this time.

                 

Characters:

None new

Summary:

Jim and Huck spend the next few days traveling down the river. They only travel at night to avoid being seen and questioned. One night, they see a wrecked steamboat ahead of them. Huck convinces Jim to tie the raft to the boat and climb on board. They are surprised to hear voices, which Huck goes to investigate. There are three robbers on board, two of whom have tied up the third man. The two men finally decide to kill their partner by leaving him on the boat and waiting until it sinks. At this news, Huck scrambles back to rejoin Jim. They then discover that their raft has come untied and floated away. Having lost their raft, Huck and Jim search along the crashed ferryboat for the robbers' skiff. Just as they find it, the two robbers emerge and place the goods they have looted into the skiff. Huck and Jim jump into the skiff, cut the rope, and speed away downstream. Before morning, they manage to find their raft again and recapture it. Jim is hoping to reach Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois where the Ohio River merges with the Mississippi. From there, both he and Huck will be able to take a steamboat upriver and into the free states where Jim will finally be a free man. As they approaching that section of the river, a dense fog arrives and blankets everything in a murky white. They land on the shore, but before Huck is able to tie up the raft, the raft pulls loose and starts floating downstream with Jim aboard. Huck jumps into the canoe and follows it, but soon loses sight of it in the fog. He and Jim spend several hours tracking each other by calling out, but a large island finally separates them and Huck is left all alone. The next morning, Huck awakens and luckily manages to catch up with the raft. He finds Jim asleep and wakes him up. Jim is glad to see him, but Huck tries to play a trick on Jim by telling him that the events of the night before were just a dream. After some convincing, Jim starts to interpret the "dream." After some time, Huck finally points out the leaves and debris left from the night before, at which point Jim gets mad at Huck for playing such a mean trick on him. Huck feels terrible about what he did and apologizes to Jim. As Jim and Huck float downriver, Jim restlessly searches the riverbank for the town of Cairo. Heading to shore to determine what town they are near and with the intention of reporting Jim. They continue watching for Cairo, but are unable to locate it. After several days, both Huck and Jim begin to suspect that they passed Cairo in the fog several nights prior. While drifting downstream, they encounter an oncoming steamboat. Instead of getting out of their way as the steamboats usually do, the boat ploughs directly over the raft. Both Huck and Jim are forced to dive overboard. Huck emerges and grabs a piece of wood with which he paddles to the shore. Jim is nowhere to be seen.