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Subject:
From:
"L. Dan Walker" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:51:55 EDT
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Camy:
The D & K are indeed annoying, and I agree they overstay their
welcome--especially that last Nonesuch business. If you're not going to TELL
us what was so
funny about it, because it's too dirty, why put it in? )


I suspect Twain intended them to be annoying--as foils for human
nature--ways
to show up our gullibility and other failings --and of course they make for
an easy bank shot against actual royalty when Jim says something like "all
kings is mostly rapscallions as far as Ican tell."  And as fake aristocrats
they
are a farcical balance to the real aristocrat: Colonel Grangerford, who is
not
made fun of (much), but treated with respect by Huck (who can "feel" his
kindliness and seems drawn to him as a father figure)--but whose chivalric
code and
its tragic consequences must be condemned ...seriously, without farce.
(It's
no accident, in my view, that Buck and Huck are alike in more ways than the
letters of their names: Buck is really an alternate Huck!)

Also if you'll allow me a "stretcher" ...maybe the D & K sort of complete
the
microcosm of the raft: black, white, young, old, boy trickster, adult
con-artist...  No females, but...well it was Victorian times.

Sorry for all that.  There's ten minutes of your life you'll never get back!
Dan

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