Reader Response 3: (14 - 18)

What impresses Huck about the Grangerford’s house was the look of the house. He was impressed by the brass doorknob which is not common where he lives. “It didn’t have an iron latch on the front door, nor a wooden one with a buckskin string, but a brass knob to turn, the same as houses in a town.”(ch.17, p.75, par.2) He also is impressed because there are no beds in the parlor, which is actually used as a parlor and not an extra bedroom. These things that impress Huck show that his view of success and happiness is somewhat based on your possessions but also on your personality and hospitality.

The books in the house are all higher reading than what Huck has read before. They all have some sort of importance to the family whether it is for entertainment, guidance, reference, or remembrance for their daughter who died at a young age. Huck is interested in them because they all are things to help him too in some way or another. They also challenge him and help him to increase his knowledge and reading skills. “I read considerable in it now and then. The statements was interesting, but tough.”(ch.17, p.76, par.2) This all shows that Huck view on education is positive unlike his father who, unlike Huck is very illiterate. Twain's view on education is very similar to Huck’s in the fact that they both used their prior knowledge to make inferences.

The thing that is unique about the drawings and poems in the scrapbook is the repetitive references to death. The girl who created all the things in the scrapbook seems to be obsessed with death and the deceased. Twain describes one of her unfinished drawings in detail more so than the others. He does so because the girl died before she was able to finish the drawing and it represents several things. One of the things it represents is his view on death, Twain like the girl fascinated was by death and its methods. It also shows Twain's appreciation for different mediums through which art is expressed whether its in words, or a drawing. Huck is touched by the girl's life and her art because she had great potential and would have probably been famous if it weren't for her death at such an early age. "If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she was fourteen, there ain't no telling what she could a done by-and-by."(ch.17, p.78, par.1)