Jim requires a rope ladder, a moat, and a shirt on which to keep a journal,
presumably in his own blood. Sawing his leg off to escape would also be a
nice touch. But since they're pressed for time, they will dig Jim out with
case-knives (large kitchen knives).
Chapters 36-39 Summary
Out late at night, Huck and Tom give up digging with the case-knives
after much fruitless efiort. They use pick-axes instead, but agree to "let
on"{pretend{that they are using case-knives. The next day, Tom and Huck
gather candlesticks, candles, spoons, and a tin plate. Jim can etch a
declaration of his captivity on the tin plate using the other objects, then
throw it out the window to be read by the world, like in the novels. That
night, the two boys dig their way to Jim, who is delighted to see them. He
tells them that Sally and Silas have been to visit and pray with him. He
doesn't understand the boys' scheme but agrees to go along. Tom thinks the
whole thing enormously fun and "intellectural." He tricks Jim's keeper,
Nat, into bringing Jim a "witch pie" to help ward off the witches that have
haunted Nat.
The missing shirt, candles, sheets, and other articles Huck and Tom
stole to give Jim get Aunt Sally mad at everyone but the two boys in
Chapter Thirty-seven. To make up, Huck and Tom secretly plug up the holes
of the rats that have supposedly stolen everything, confounding Uncle Silas
when he goes to do the job. By removing and then replacing sheets and
spoons, the two boys so confuse Sally that she loses track of how many she
has. It takes a great deal of trouble to put the rope ladder (made of
sheets) in the witch's pie, but at last it is finished and they give it to
Jim. Tom insists Jim scratch an inscription on the wall of the shed, with
his coat of arms, the way the books say. Making the pens from the spoons
and candlestick is a great deal of trouble, but they manage. Tom creates an
unintentionally humorous coat of arms and set of mournful declarations for
Jim to inscribe on the wall. When Tom disapproves of writing on a wooden,
rather than a stone wall, they go steal a millstone. Tom then tries to get
Jim to take a rattlesnake or rat into the shack to tame, and to grow a ower
to water with his tears. Jim protests against the ridiculously unnecessary
amount of trouble Tom wants to create. Tom replies that these are
opportunities for greatness.
Huck and Tom capture rats and snakes in Chapter Thirty-nine,
accidentally infesting the Phelps house with them. Aunt Sally becomes
wildly upset when the snakes start to fall from the rafters onto her or her
bed. Tom explains that that's just how women are. Jim, meanwhile, hardly
has room to move with all the wildlife in his shed. Uncle Silas decides it
is time to sell Jim, and starts sending out advertisements. So Tom writes
letters, signed an "unknown friend," to the Phelps warning of trouble. The
family is terrified. Tom finishes with a longer letter pretending to be
from a member of a band of desperate gangsters out to steal Jim. The author
has found religion and so is warning them to block the plan.
Chapters 40-43 Summary
Fifteen uneasy local men with guns are in the Phelps's front room. Huck
goes to the shed to warn Tom and Jim. Tom is excited to hear about the
fifteen armed men. A group of men rush into the shed. In the darkness Tom,
Huck, and Jim escape through the hole. Tom makes a noise going over the
fence, attracting the attention of the men, who shoot at them as they run.
But they make it to the hidden raft, and set off downstream, delighted with
their success{especially Tom, who has a bullet in the leg as a souvenir.
Huck and Jim are taken aback by Tom's wound. Jim says they should get a
doctor{what Tom would do if the situation were reversed. Jim's reaction
confirms Huck's belief that Jim is "white inside."
Huck finds a doctor in Chapter Forty-one and sends him to Tom. The next
morning, Huck runs into Silas, who takes him home. The place is filled with
farmers and their wives, all discussing the weird contents of Jim's shed,
and the hole. They conclude a band of (probably black) robbers of amazing
skill must have tricked not only the Phelps and their friends, but the
original band of desperadoes. Sally will not let Huck out to find Tom,
since she is so sad to have lost Tom and does not want to risk another boy.
Huckleberry is touched by her concern and vows never to hurt her again.
Silas has been unable to find Tom in Chapter Forty- two. They have
gotten a letter from Tom's Aunt Polly, Sally's sister. But Sally casts it
aside when she sees Tom, semi-conscious, brought in on a mattress,
accompanied by a crowd including Jim, in chains, and the doctor. Some of
the local men would like to hang Jim, but are unwilling to risk having to
compensate Jim's master. So they treat Jim roughly, and chain him hand and
foot inside the shed. The doctor intervenes, saying Jim isn't bad, since he
sacrificed his freedom to help nurse Tom. Sally, meanwhile, is at Tom's
bedside, glad that his condition has improved. Tom wakes and gleefully
details how they set Jim free. He is horrified to learn that Jim is now in
chains. He explains that Jim was freed in Miss Watson's will when she died
two months ago.
She regretted ever having considered selling Jim down the river. Just
then, Aunt Polly walks into the room. She came after Sally mysteriously
wrote her that Sid Sawyer was staying with her. After a tearful reunion
with Sally, she identifies Tom and Huckleberry, yelling at both boys for
their misadventures. When Huckleberry asks Tom in the last chapter what he
planned to do once he had freed the already- freed Jim, Tom replies that he
was going to repay Jim for his troubles and send him back a hero. When Aunt
Polly and the Phelps hear how Jim helped the doctor, they treat him much
better.
Tom gives Jim forty dollars for his troubles. Jim declares that the
omen of his hairy chest has come true. Tom makes a full recovery, and has
the bullet inserted into a watch he wears around his neck. He and Huck
would like to go on another adventure, to Indian Territory (present-day
Oklahoma). But Huck worries Pap has taken all his money. Jim tells him that
couldn't have happened: the dead body they found way back on the houseboat,
that Jim would not let Huck see, belonged to Pap. Huck has nothing more to
write about. He is "rotten glad," since writing a book turned out to be
quite a task. He does not plan any future writings. Instead, he hopes to
make the trip out to Indian Territory, since Aunt Sally is already trying
to "sivilize" him, and he's had enough of that.
ALL THE KING’S MEN
Robert Penn Warren was one of the twentieth century's outstanding men
of letters. He found great success as a novelist, a poet, a critic, and a
scholar, and enjoyed a career showered with acclaim. He won two Pulitzer
Prizes, was Poet Laureate of the United States, and was presented with a
Congressional Medal of Fr edom. He founded the Southern Review and was an
important contributor to the New Criticism of 1930s and '40s.
Born in 1905, Warren showed his exceptional intelligence from an early
age; he attended college at Vanderbilt University, where he befriended some
of the most important contemporary figures in Southern literature,
including Allan Tate and John Crowe Ransom, and where he won a Rhodes
Scholarship to study at Oxford University in England. During a stay in
Italy, Warren wrote a verse drama called Proud Flesh,which dealt with
themes of political power and moral corruption. As a professor at Louisiana
State University, Warren had observed the rise of Louisiana political boss
Huey Long, who embodied, in many ways, the ideas Warren tried to work into
Proud Flesh. Unsatisfied with the result, Warren began to rework his
elaborate drama into a novel, set in the contemporary South, and based in
part on the person of Huey Long.
The result was All the King'sMen, Warren's best and most acclaimed
book. First published in 1946, Allthe King's Men is one of the best
literary documents dealing with the American South during the Great
Depression. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize, and was adapted into a movie
that won an Academy Award in 1949.
All the King's Men focuses on the lives of Willie Stark, an upstart
farm boy who rises through sheer force of will to become Governor of an
unnamed Southern state during the 1930s, and Jack Burden, the novel's
narrator, a cynical scion of the state's political aristocracy who uses his
abilities as a historical researcher to help Willie blackmail and control
his enemies.
The novel deals with the large question of the responsibility
individuals bear for their actions within the turmoil of history, and it is
perhaps appropriate that the impetus of the novel's story comes partly from
real historical occurrences.
Jack Burden is entirely a creation of Robert Penn Warren, but there
are a number of important parallels between Willie Stark and Huey Long, who
served Louisiana as both Governor and Senator from 1928 until his death in
1935.
Like Huey Long, Willie Stark is an uneducated farm boy who passed the
state bar exam; like Huey Long, he rises to political power in his state by
instituting liberal reform designed to help the state's poor farmers. And
like Huey Long, Willie is assassinated at the peak of his power by a doctor
Dr. Adam Stanton in Willie's case, Dr. Carl A. Weiss in Long's. (Unlike
Willie, however, Long was assassinated after becoming a Senator, and was in
fact in the middle of challenging Franklin D. Roosevelt for the
Presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.)
Characters
Jack Burden -- Willie Stark's political right-hand man, the narrator
of the novel and in many ways its protagonist. Jack comes from a prominent
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