Critical Lens Close Reading

Chapter 1 page #4

"Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up.  I couldn't stood it much longer.  Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety.  Miss Watson would say, "Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry;" and "Don't scrunch up like that, Huckleberry—set up straight;" and pretty soon she would say, "Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry—why don't you try to behave?"  Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn't say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it.  But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn't do no good. Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good place.  She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever.  So I didn't think much of it. But I never said so.  I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight.  I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together."

In this passage Miss Watson is trying to break Huckleberry and create him into an ordinary white male of that time period, she is trying to do this by teaching Huck manners and how to act. The Feminist lense is usually view as how woman are seen in society and what roles they play. Most women in society are seen as nurturers, teachers, mothers and even as pure women.

In this period of time females in society where also know as “good” which meant that they have to pretty much be perfect and they could not misbehave or they could not do anything bad because the males were know as the “bad” ones. In this passage we can see how Miss Watson was the a “good” and “pure” women. She would always talk about the “good place” and how she wanted to live a good life so she would be able to go to heaven.

We can see that Miss Watson is considered a pure women because of her name. She uses Miss which means that she is still yet not married. “She was going to live so as to go to the good place.” In this quote Miss Watson talks to Huck about how she wants to go to the “good place” referring to Heaven and how she will never say any of the words that Huck says because she wants to live a good life. “She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever.” In this quote, Miss Watson goes on and on about why she wants to go to Heaven and how Heaven is the good place to go to. This shows how Miss Watson is considered a pure woman because she tries to be a model women.

Throughout this passage we do not get to see any of Miss Watson’s thoughts or desires, we only get to see Huck’s. Huck sees Miss Watson as a teacher, because she is teaching him manners and how to act as a regular white man. Huck is a typical male that is “bad”. “Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry;”, "Don't scrunch up like that, Huckleberry—set up straight;" Miss Watson is always correcting Huck, and is trying to change his bad manners. Growing up Huck did not go to school and was not taught anything because his Pap, would just get drunk, so when he decided to run away the widow and Miss Watson has to teach him how to be like an ordinary white man.

Through the feminist lense we get to see how every gender does not have an equal say, women are usually in the background of the story and males have more say. Women are also described as a “model” women and they usually are widows, stay at home women, or even teachers. Here we get to see how Miss Watson has to not only teach Huck manners and how to act, but she also has to teach how to spell and read.