Essay on Superstition in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Superstition Superstition is a recurring motif in the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Superstition is defined as "an irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome." In this book, most of the superstitions that are mentioned are negative but some are positive or neutral. The first example of a negative superstition takes place at Hannibal, Missouri when Huck flicks a spider off his …

…luck from spilling the salt. Obviously, Huck believed this superstition or he would not have thrown he salt. Some superstitions are passed down from generation to generation, but others are the result of a person connecting one event to another. For example, Jim believes that catching a bird brings death because his father died after someone caught a bird. For Huck, all the bad luck that him and Jim had came from handling the snakeskin.