
A belief, not based on human reason or
scientific knowledge, that future events
may be influenced by one's behavior in
some magical or mystical way
Throughout Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
expresses many forms of superstition.
 Jim was extremely superstitious.
 This played a major role in the story.

By further researching Twain, he had a
background of being superstitious.
 He believed in Calvinism, which was a
religion that was exceedingly
superstitious.

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The superstition of spiders is believed that
when one sees, or kills a spider, then that
person will have bad luck.

It is believed that killing a snake is bad
luck, but the skin of the snake can heal
bites or wounds efficiently.
In the days in which Huckleberry Finn was
in, it was believed that hairballs had a
magic spirit.
 This magic spirit answered the questions
of whom ever had it.

Salt is a common superstition.
 Whenever knocking over salt,
or just to keep bad luck away,
salt is to be thrown over the
left shoulder.


It is believed that is if you catch or kill a
bird, then you would die.

If a man had a bee hive and died, the
bees would need to be told before
sundown or all the bees would die.
If a man had a hairy chest and hairy
arms, he was said to become rich some
day.
 They also believed that a piece of bread
that contains quicksilver, can point out a
dead body.

People often use superstitions to explain
things that they couldn’t explain
otherwise.
 If something good happens, it’s easily
explainable by coming across good
luck.
 If something terrible happens, it’s more
comforting to blame bad luck than
oneself.

It is bad luck to count things before one
cook dinner.
 No one should shake the table cloth
after sundown.

Many of his superstitions are random and
have very little evidence.
 Jim could quite possibly
create superstitions by
his own personal
experiences.

Back in the time of Huckleberry Finn,
people didn’t have explanations for
things happening.
 This is why people began to blame
witches, and create superstitions to keep
them away.

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en.wiktionary.org/wiki/superstition
http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=16708
http://www.dreamessays.com/customessays/Huckl
eberry%20Finn/2389.htm
http://reformedtheology.org/html/books/calvinism-history/4.htm
http://www.shmoop.com/huckleberry-finn/thesupernatural-theme.html
http://www.cyberessays.com/English/58.htm