Adventures Of Huck Finn Essays (942 words) - Readers Digest

Adventures Of Huck Finn All children have a special place, whether chosen by a conscious decision or not this is a place where one can go to sort their thoughts. Nature can often provide comfort by providing a nurturing surrounding where a child is forced to look within and choices can be made untainted by society. Mark Twain once said "Don't let school get in the way of your education." Twain states that this education which is provided by society, can actually hinder human growth and maturity. Although a formal education shouldn't be completely shunned, perhaps true life experience, in society and nature, are a key part of development. In the novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain throws the curious yet innocent mind of Huck Finn out into a very hypocritical, judgmental, and hostile world, yet Huck has one escape--the Mississippi River constantly flowing nearby. Here nature is presented as a thought provoking environment when experienced alone. The river is quiet and peaceful place where Huck can revert to examine any predicament he might find himself in: "They went off, and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low...Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on,- s'pose you'd a done right and give Jim up; would you felt better than you do now? No, says I, I'd feel bad..." (p.127). Only a few weeks with Jim and still feeling great ambivalence, Huck returns to the river to think. Twain tries here to tell the reader how strong the "mob" really is, and only when totally alone is Huck able to make the morally correct decision. The natural flowing and calm of the river cause this deep-thought, show! ing how unnatural the collective thought of a society can be. The largest and most obvious test of Huck's character is his relationship with Jim. The friendship and assistance which he gives to Jim go completely against all that "sivilization" has taught him; at first this concept troubles Huck and causes him a great deal of pain, but over time, through his life experiences and shared times with Jim, Huck crosses the line upheld by the racist South and comes to know Jim as a human being. Huck is at a point in his life where opinions are formed, and by growing on the river, Huck can stand back from society and form his own. Eventually he goes as far as to risk his life for Jim:"And got to thinking of our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me, all the time, in the day, and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a floating along, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn't see no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind...I studied a minute sort of holding my breath, and then I s! ays to myself: 'All right, then, I'll go to hell'..." (pp.270-271). After a long and thought-provoking adventure, Huck returns to the raft one final time to decide the fate of his friend. Symbolically, Huck makes the morally correct decision away from all others, thinking on the river. Although it might not be evident to himself, Huck causes the reader to see that "sivilization", in their treatment of blacks especially, is not civilized at all. Every person Huck and Jim come across seems to just be following someone else blindly, as the whole country were some sort of mob. In the last few chapters, Tom Sawyer is re-introduced and the reader is left to examine how different environments: "sivilization" and nature (the river), have affected the children's growth. It is distinctly evident that Huck has turned out to be the one with a clear and intelligent mind, and Tom, although he can regurgitate worthless facts about Louis XVI and Henry VIII, shows no real sign of maturity. "The first time I catched up to Tom, private, I asked him what was his idea, time of the evasion?- what it was he planned to do if the evasion worked out all right and he managed to set a nigger free that was already free before? And he said, what he had planned in his head, from the start, if we got Jim out, all safe, was for us to run him down the river, on the raft, and have adventures plumb to the mouth..." (p.360). Huck has always thought of Tom as more intelligent than himself, but he cannot understand how Tom could toy with Jim's life in such a way. For

Ornitholestes - Facts and Figures

Ornitholestes - Facts and Figures Name: Ornitholestes (Greek for bird robber); pronounced OR-nith-oh-LEST-eez Habitat: Forests of western North America Historical Period: Late Jurassic (155-145 million years ago) Size and Weight: About 5 feet long and 25 pounds Diet: Meat Distinguishing Characteristics: Slender build; long hind legs About Ornitholestes Discovered in 1903, Ornitholestes was given its name (Greek for bird robber) by the famous naturalist Henry F. Osborn before paleontologists had grappled with the evolutionary origin of birds. Its certainly possible that this slender theropod preyed on the proto-birds of the late Jurassic period, but since birds didnt really come into their own until the late Cretaceous, its more likely that Ornitholestes feasted on small lizards and the carrion left over by larger carnivores. Whatever the case, theres not much fossil evidence to support either supposition: unlike the situation with its close cousins Coelophysis and Compsognathus, remains of Ornitholestes are few and far between, necessitating a large amount of guesswork. Ornitholestes reputation as a bird-eater has much in common with Oviraptors reputation as an egg-stealer: these were inferences drawn on the basis of insufficient knowledge (and in the case of Ornitholestes, the myth was perpetuated by a famous painting by Charles R. Knight depicting this dinosaur preparing to eat a captured Archaeopteryx). Theres still a lot of speculation about Ornitholestes: one paleontologist suggests that this dinosaur snatched fish out of lakes and rivers, another maintains that (if Ornitholestes had hunted in packs) it might have been capable of taking down plant-eating dinosaurs as big as Camptosaurus, and yet a third believes that Ornitholestes may have hunted by night, in a deliberate attempt to avoid (and outfox) its fellow theropod Coelurus.