In this first chapter of Mark Twain's The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck introduces himself to the reader. In
addition, he introduces the Widow Douglas with whom he lives. However, each time that
Huck describes her positively, he also has a negative remark. For instance, he first
narrates that she has taken him in as her son with the intention of civilizing
him,
but it
was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent
the widow was in all
ways.
After he runs away, she
cries and calls him a "poor lost lamb,"
and she called me a lot of other names, too, but
she never meant no harm by
it.
Then, when Huck wants to
smoke, Widow Douglas tells him it is a mean practice and unclean. This upsets Pip
because she is concerned about Moses, when he is dead, but finds "a power of fault" with
Huck for doing a thing that "had some good in it." And,
besides,
she
took snuff too; of course that was all right, because she done it
herself.
It would seem,
therefore, that Widow Douglas, like so many self-righteous Christians, has double
standards. According to Huck, the Widow has some kindness, but she acts righteous at
the end of each conflict, wishing to maintain control. So, in her fault-finding, she
reclaims a certain power.
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