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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
the reader gains an understanding of the world Mark Twain created, the reader is able to catch Twain's jokes and hear his skepticism. The Grangerford's furniture, much admired by Huck, is actually comicly tacky. You can almost hear Mark Twain laughing over the parrot-flanked clock and the curtains with cows and castles painted on them even as Huck oohs and ahhs. And Twain pokes fun at the young dead daughter Huck is so drawn to. Twain mocks Emmeline as an amateur writer: "She warn't particular, she could write about anything you choose to give her to write about, just so it was sadful"). Yet Twain allows the images of Emmeline and the silly clock to deepen in meaning as the chapter progresses. Emmeline is realized as an early portent of the destruction of Huck's adopted family. The mantel clock was admired by Huck not only for its beauty, but because the Grangerfords properly valued beauty and "wouldn't took any money for her". Huck admired the Grangerfords' principles, and the stake they placed in good manners, delicious food, and attractive possessions. But Huck realizes in Chapter 18 that whereas the Grangerfords may value a hand-painted clock more than money, they put little value on human life.
The third view of the Grangerford's world is provided by Buck Grangerford. He is the same age as Huck; he has grown up in a world of feuding, family picnics, and Sunday sermon that are appreciated but rarely followed. Buck, from when he meets Huck until he is brutally murdered, never questions the ways of his family. For the rest of the chapter, Buck provides a foil for Huck, showing the more mature Huck questioning and judging the world around him. In fact it seems Buck does not have the imagination to conceive of a different world. He is amazed Huck has never heard of a feud, and surprised by Huck's desire to hear the history and the rationale behind it. In Buck Grangerford's rambling answers we hear Mark Twain's view of a southern feuding family, and after Buck finishes his answer, we watch Huck's reaction to the true nature of the Grangerfords. Buck details Twain's opinion that a feud is not started or continued by thought. The reasons for the feud have been forgotten, and the Grangerfords do not hate, but in fact respect, their sworn enemies. They live their lives by tradition, and the fact that the feud is a tradition justifies its needless, pointless violence. From the dignified Colonel with "a few buck-shot in him" to Buck, who is eager for the glory to be gained from shooting a Shepherdson in the back, the Grangerfords unquestioningly believe in de-valuing human life because it is a civilized tradition.
It is interesting that the only compliment Huck gives to a Grangerford after Buck shot at Harney Shepherdson was to Miss Sophia. He admitts that the young women who denied part in any family feud is "powerful pretty". But the rosy sheen that had spurred Huck to use [next page]