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Chapter 7
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Slavery and Racism
Society and Hypocrisy
Religion and Superstition
Growing Up
Freedom
Summary
Analysis
Huck wakes and takes in his surroundings, like a couple squirrels, Huck says, that “jabbered at me very friendly.” Soon Huck hears a “boom!” sound. Looking upstream, he sees a ferry firing a canon, which, Huck figures, is being done to make his own carcass come to the river’s surface. Hungry, Huck remembers that people looking for carcasses in the river put quicksilver in loaves of bread and float them down the river, because they always go right to the drowned body and stop there. Huck retrieves such a loaf and is pleased to learn that it tastes better than the “low-down corn-pone” that he usually eats.
After being locked up with the hostile Pap, Huck finds even squirrels to be welcoming. However, this scene is later contrasted with scenes in which nature is very dangerous. Although Huck is free in nature, he could not survive there without human society for very long. It’s ironic, though, that here society provides Huck, albeit unknowingly, with better food to eat when he is presumed dead, than when he is alive.
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Huck thinks that the Widow or parson must have prayed for a loaf of bread to find his body, and, indeed, one did. He figures that when somebody like the Widow or parson prays, the prayer is answered, but that when someone like him prays, the prayer goes unanswered.
Huck’s thoughts on prayer have changed by this passage: whereas before he puts no stock in prayer, here Huck comes to think that good people’s prayers are answered, and that bad people’s are not. He sees himself as bad, because society has long equated his poverty and wildness with badness, though it is obvious to readers that Huck is not bad at all, revealing society’s hypocrisy.
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Huck hides behind a long near the island’s shore to observe the ferry as it passes. Many people he knows are onboard, including Pap, Judge Thatcher, and Tom Sawyer, all of whom are talking about Huck’s “murder.” The captain tells them to scan the shore of Jackson Island for the corpse, and all of them do so, but none see Huck even though he is very close by. The cannon is fired, and Huck imagines that, had it been loaded, the blast would have killed him. The ferry drifts on downstream.
Huck makes a tent, catches a catfish to eat, and puts in more fishing lines to catch breakfast. He begins to feel lonesome, however, and decides to go to bed. Such is his routine for the next three days and nights. He thinks of himself as the “boss” of Jackson’s Island. One day, however, after running across a snake and trying to shoot it, Huck comes across the yet-smoking ashes of a campfire. He nervously returns to his camp and hides his things. He himself hides in a tree. When it gets dark, Huck paddles to the Illinois bank of the river, prepares supper, and decides to stay put for the rest of the night.
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Suddenly, Huck hears the sound of horses and human voices. He shoves out in his canoe and ties up back to his old place. There he tries to get some sleep, but can’t, “for thinking.” Restless, Huck goes into the woods with his gun, to re-find the campfire ashes he discovered earlier. Though he has no luck, later he does see a fire. A man is sleeping nearby: it is Jim. Huck greets him, but Jim jumps up, then falls to his knees, begging Huck not to hurt him, for he thinks Huck is a ghost. Huck succeeds in convincing Jim that he is not, in fact, a ghost. Huck also finds that he is no longer lonesome having found Jim.
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Huck learns that Jim came to Jackson’s Island the night after Huck was allegedly killed, and that the runaway slave has been living on nothing but strawberries. Huck sets up camp and brings out his provisions of meal, bacon, and coffee, all of which Jim thinks is done by witchcraft. Huck also catches a catfish, which he and Jim enjoy for breakfast. The two eat till they’re stuffed and laze in the grass.
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If it wasn’t Huck killed in the cabin, Jim asks Huck, who was killed? Huck then explains his escape to Jim, who praises the plan as being worthy of Tom Sawyer himself. In turn, Huck asks Jim how he came to be on Jackson’s Island. Jim, reticent at first, has Huck swear to silence, which Huck does, and he assures Jim that he will honor his oath even if people call him a “low down Abolitionist.” Jim explains that Miss Watson treated him poorly and often threatened to sell him to a slaveholder in New Orleans. One night, Jim overheard Miss Watson say that, even though she doesn’t want to sell him, she could get eight hundred dollars for him, and so has decided to sell. Consequently, Jim fled, doing so by water to avoid being tracked by men and dogs. He eventually swam up to Jackson’s Island.
Some young birds fly by Jim and Huck. Jim says that this is a sign that it is going to rain, for chickens flying by signify rain, and so, Jim figures, the same must be the case with young birds. Huck makes to kill one of the birds, but Jim stops him saying that doing so would be death. Jim explains that his father was once very sick, and one of Jim’s relatives caught a bird, and Jim’s grandma said his father would die, and his father did. Jim goes on to list things that bring bad luck, like counting what one is going to eat and shaking a tablecloth after sundown.
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Huck asks if there are any good-luck signs. Jim says there are very few, and that they’re not very useful, because there’s no reason to know if good luck is coming one’s way. For example, Jim says, if you have hairy arms and a hairy chest, it’s a sign that you will be rich. Huck asks Jim if he has hairy arms and a hairy chest, which Jim does. Though Jim admits he isn’t rich now, he says he was once rich, recounting how he lost his money speculating in livestock and a bank. But at last, Jim thinks, he is rich now, because he owns himself, and he is worth eight hundred dollars. He wishes he had that money, because then he “wouldn’ want no mo’.”
