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Huck Finn 71471 Views
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Description:
If you suddenly came into a bunch of money, you'd give it all away, right? Yeah, we figured.
Transcript
- 00:04
Huck Finn, a la Shmoop. It’s 1884. You and your buddy just found
- 00:13
twelve thousand dollars in a cave. Your half is 6k.
- 00:17
How much was six thousand dollars in those days? Adjusting for inflation, it would be
- 00:22
about a gazillion dollars today.
- 00:23
Give or take a zillion. So… awesome. You’re in the money.
Full Transcript
- 00:29
What’s the first thing you’re going to do with all this newfound fortune?
- 00:33
New house? New ride? Mediterranean cruise?
- 00:37
Give it all away? Ha, give it all away. Right.
- 00:41
Wait, what?
- 00:43
In Mark Twain’s Huck Finn, that is precisely what his title character does.
- 00:47
What could have possessed him to do such a thing? Is he totally nuts?
- 00:52
First of all, let’s be clear… he gave the cash to Judge Thatcher for safekeeping.
- 00:58
So it was still technically his.
- 00:59
But it wasn’t because he didn’t trust himself to not blow it all during a sale at
- 01:05
Bloomingdale’s.
- 01:06
It was because he truly did not want it. For a kid who lived his entire life in abject
- 01:15
poverty…
- 01:15
…that money could have come in handy.
- 01:18
It could have kept him clothed and fed, and gone a long way to helping out his loved ones.
- 01:23
Even if he didn’t want the pressure of wealth…
- 01:26
…or was freaked out about Uncle Sam hitting him with some sort of “spelunking tax”…
- 01:32
…he could have bought some really nice things for those who cared about him… or had cared
- 01:37
for him. But Huck didn’t give the money to Judge
- 01:39
Thatcher immediately.
- 01:41
He did actually give the “sivilized” life the old college try.
- 01:46
But the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, who were trying to turn Huck into… well, a real
- 01:53
boy…
- 01:53
…were driving him bonkers.
- 01:56
He may have lived his entire life up to that point without much spending cash…
- 02:03
…but at least there weren’t so many dang rules.
- 02:09
Once Huck learned that money and responsibility were inextricably tied together…
- 02:13
…all that green may have lost some of its former allure.
- 02:18
But maybe some part of Huck realized that he wasn’t quite ready to make the mature
- 02:21
decisions required of someone receiving such a windfall.
- 02:26
Whatever excuses he made, could it be that he just wanted the money to be out of sight,
- 02:31
out of mind…
- 02:32
…until he was a bit older and would have a better idea what to do with it?
- 02:41
After all, six thousand dollars buys an awful lot of penny candy. He could have wound up
- 02:45
with a truly awful stomachache. Why did Huck say adieu to his fortune?
- 02:52
Did he honestly dislike money and prefer being poor?
- 02:56
Did he decide it wasn’t worth becoming “sivilized?”
- 02:59
Or was this decision about the only mature one Huck ever made?
- 03:04
Shmoop amongst yourselves.
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