Chapter 16
After dinner,
the boys eat a supper of turtle eggs. Then they strip naked and go swimming,
and stage an improvised circus. But their spirits are sinking into
homesickness: even Tom finds himself writing Becky's name in the sand with his
toe. However, Tom does not want to give up on island life yet, and tries to get
the others interested in digging for treasure - in vain. Joe announces that he
is going home and wades off towards the Illinois shore. Huck admits that he
also wants to go. Huck tries to persuade Tom to leave with him, but Tom
refuses, and Huck starts off alone. Tom realizes that he will have to come up
with an incentive to keep the others on the island, and offers to tell them a
secret. They come back, and Tom shares his secret with them. They are
delighted, though we do not yet know what the secret is.
After dinner, at
Tom's suggestion, Huck teaches him and Joe how to smoke. Tom and Joe boast
about how they do not feel sick and how they could easily go on smoking all
day. They look forward to showing off their new habit to their friends back
home. But as they continue, they begin to retch and feel ill. Joe goes off, as
he says, to look for a lost knife, and Tom offers to help him by searching in
the other direction. Huck finds them later in the woods, pale and asleep,
probably having vomited. That night, Huck offers to make them pipes, but they
refuse, claiming to have eaten something that disagreed with them.
Chapter 17
That night,
there is a storm. The sail they are using as a tent blows away, and they are
forced to shelter under an oak tree on the riverbank. When they return to camp,
they find that the sycamore that sheltered their tent has been torn down; they
have narrowly escaped being crushed under it. As there is no dry place to
sleep, they coax their fire back to life and cook some ham. As day breaks, they
fall asleep, only to get scorched by the sun. Tom sees that the others are
homesick again, so he rallies their spirits by reminding them of their secret.
Then he organizes a game in which they pretend to be Indians. They fight mock
battles, but towards supper-time realize that there is only one way to make
peace: to smoke a pipe of peace. Tom and Joe begin to wish they had remained
pirates, but when they take a puff, they are happy to find that they do not
become sick. They are proud of their achievement.
Chapter 18
It is Sunday in
St Petersburg. The Harpers and Aunt Polly's family are officially going into
mourning and the entire town is unusually quiet. Becky regrets her coldness to
Tom and wishes she had kept the brass knob, as now she has nothing to remember
him by. The children of the town compete with each other as to who was the last
to see each boy alive.
Aunt Polly's
family and the Harpers arrive at the church for the boys' funeral service. The
minister eulogizes the boys, feeling guilty that he had previously been blind
to their good points. He recounts incidents that illustrate how sweet and
generous they were, "and remembered with grief that at the time they occurred
they had seemed rank rascalities, well deserving of the cowhide." By the end of
the sermon, the whole congregation and the minister are in tears.
The church door
opens and Tom leads in Joe and Huck. Tom and Joe are welcomed into the loving
embraces of the families, but no one welcomes Huck, who stands to one side,
looking awkward. Tom points out the unfairness of this to Aunt Polly
("Somebody's got to be glad to see Huck"), who gives Huck a hug, to his great
discomfort. The minister leads the congregation in singing a hymn of thanksgiving.
For Tom, this is "the proudest moment in his life."
Analysis of
Chapters 16-18
Tom's ability to
stage-manage other people is clear in these chapters. He persuades his friends
to run away with him to the island to be pirates, but they all soon become
homesick. Determined not to give up before the time is ripe for their
reappearance in St Petersburg, Tom re-engages them with his "secret" plan to
make a theatrical entrance at their own funerals. His friends will be playing
parts designed by Tom. His motivation in wanting to learn to smoke is similar.
While he does not enjoy his first smoke, he creates an elaborate scenario of
how he will look to other children when he first smokes in front of them,
working out in detail what he and Joe will say and do: "And then you'll out
with the pipes, and we'll light up just as ca'm, and
then just see 'em look!"
Tom takes on the
role of the theatre director, who decides what others will do and say, and also
the role of chief performer: he wants to see the looks on others' faces when he
gives his performance. It is this that feeds and motivates him. In observing
others' reactions, he becomes the passive audience of the 'play' he has
actively directed and starred in. An example is the incident in Chapter 15, when,
from his vantage point under the bed, he covertly watches his family dissolve
into grief over his stage-managed 'death.' What greater starring role could
there be than to rise from the dead once more at his own funeral?
Another theme
that is developed in these chapters is the mutual dependency of the adult and
children's societies. Joe comments that "Swimming's no good; I don't seem to
care for it, somehow, when there ain't anybody to say I shan't go in." In this
novel, it is the role of children to do things that they are not allowed to do,
and the role of adults to punish them for it. Though the children have impulses
to independence, the freedom they crave loses its luster when it is no longer
forbidden them. For the adults' part, they seem to have lost their appetite for
condemning and punishing bad behavior now that the children are presumed dead.
Tom and Joe have
imagined and played at breaking free from parental control, and they admire
Huck as a symbol of the freedom they think they want. But Huck must live the
reality, and it is anything but romantic. As well as being permanently short of
food and clothes, he has no one to welcome him on his return from the island.
When Aunt Polly takes pity on him and gives him a hug, he is so unused to
receiving affection that he feels embarrassed.
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