Jackson Island

A:Tom, Huck, and Joe become depressed and leave their home to live as pirates on jackson Island B:They all play and eat and have a really good time C:While Huck and Joe sleep Tom goes back home to leave Aunt Polly a note, but decides not to D:Huck and Joe begin to want to leave E:Tom tries to keep them there by telling them the "secret" F:A huge storm happens and the boys almost die G:Tom and Joe learn to smoke and feel sick, so they go into the forest pretending to look for a knife H:Tom and Joe try smoking again after a war game they played, and are able to do it with ease I:Tom, Huck, and Joe go back home and enter on their own funeral, and everyone is glad

The second plot is when Tom, Huck, and Joe went to Jackson island. Driven away by the two girls he loves- Polly and Becky- Tom sulks. He convinces himself that he has been forced to "lead a life of crime." The school bell rings as he walks away from it, and he sobs. Tom meets Joe Harper, who also plans to run away. Tom persuades him to become a pirate. Once more, Tom's fantasies, gleaned from books, overpower a comrade. The boys decide to run away to Jackson's Island- Twain's fictional name for Glasscock's Island, opposite Hannibal. They get Huckleberry Finn to join them. The three boys steal provisions and meet at midnight two miles above the village. They are clearly enacting an adventure- one right out of storybooks that Tom has read. Note the gallant names: Tom, "the Black Avenger"; Huck Finn "the Red-Handed"; and Joe "the Terror of the Seas." Ned Buntline's Black Avenger, noted earlier, is the source of Tom's nickname. Buntline's 1847 book, The Last Days of Callao, may be the source of Huck's nickname. In that book, a pirate ship hoists a white flag emblazoned with "a blood-red hand." They steal a raft and head out into the Mississippi. Tom, naturally, is in charge- after all, it's his fantasy. His companions man the oars. The raft drifts downstream five miles and comes to rest on the north end of Jackson's Island, where they make camp. Afterwards, they have a discussion that accentuates the differences between Huck and the other two boys. Tom and Joe are thrilled to think that their classmates would envy them. Huck doesn't care what others think. Nor is he happy, as Tom is, not to have to "go to school, and wash"- things Huck never does anyway. Huck is content to be eating well and to be out of range of St. Petersburg's respectable citizens, who badger ("bully-rag") him. Huck lights a pipe and smokes it- something the other boys have never done. He's ashamed of his clothes. "I ain't dressed fitten for a pirate," he concludes. Yet he sleeps easily. The other boys, more accustomed to telling right from wrong, feel guilty and have trouble falling asleep. This chapter describes the boys' first full day on Jackson's Island. It is a day of roller-coaster mood swings, especially for Joe and Tom. Notice how plot twists shape the boys' moods and how the moods, in turn, shape the story. The chapter opens with a long description of the island's animal life "shaking off sleep and going to work." The boys spend most of the day swimming, fishing, and exploring the island. Late in the afternoon, they begin to feel homesick. The booming of cannon on the ferryboat interrupts their thoughts. They realize that the boat is trying to locate the body of someone who has drowned. (During Twain's youth people believed that the concussion of the cannon blasts were capable of bursting a sunken corpse's gall bladder, causing it to float to the surface.) It's Tom who understands who is thought to have "drownded- it's us!" Nothing more wonderful had ever happened to them. They are the talk of St. Petersburg. After dinner, however, their thoughts become more somber. Tom and Joe begin to feel guilty about the grief they've caused their families. But when Joe suggests they return home, Tom makes him feel foolish. Tom stays awake after the others fall asleep. He writes two notes on sycamore bark, pockets one, and places the other in Joe's hat. Then he bolts toward the sandbar. This chapter explains Tom's secrecy and sets the stage for the next two chapters. It also gives you a glimpse of Tom as a genuinely loving nephew. Tom wades, then swims to the Illinois shore, where he hides in a rowboat tied to the stern of the ferry and is towed back to Missouri. In St. Petersburg, he sneaks into Polly's house and crawls under her bed in the sitting room. Sid, Polly, Mary, and Joe Harper's mother are at the table, bemoaning the lost children. Their words give Tom a nobler opinion of himself than ever before." Tom's earlier hope of dying- temporarily- has come true. He hears his former tormentors grieve over him and he's overwhelmed, partly with pride, partly with love for his aunt. He learns that the boys' funerals will be held Sunday morning- four days away. After Mrs. Harper leaves, Polly goes to bed. Her prayer for Tom is so moving, it makes him cry. She falls asleep, and Tom creeps over to the table, where the candle still burns, and leaves the note he wrote for her. But a thought makes him change his mind. He pockets the note, kisses his sleeping aunt, and exits. He rows back to the Illinois shore and, after sunrise, swims back to Jackson's Island. After recounting his adventures, he sleeps until noon while Huck and Joe play. In terms of writing and character development, this is one of the richest chapters in the novel. It's all the more remarkable because it seems no more than a description of two days of play for the three "pirates." Examine it closely, however, and you'll see how skillful Twain is at depicting the anguish of three boys trying ever so hard to become men. After breakfast Friday morning, they shed their clothes and frolic in the water. Later, they play marbles: "knucks" (shooters must keep their knuckles on the ground), "ring-taw" (shooters knock marbles out of the ring), and "keeps" (players keep the marbles they win). Tom, his superstitions intact, refuses to follow the others into the water for a second swim because he has lost his lucky charm- an anklet made of rattlesnake rattles, which he believes can ward off a variety of sicknesses. The three boys all struggle to subdue feelings of homesickness. Tom tries to divert his friends' attention from their misery but fails. Joe finally admits he wants to go home. Tom is determined not to let him. As Joe begins to wade toward the Illinois shore, Huck says he wants to leave, too. Tom is able to stop them only by playing his trump card. He reveals "his secret"- which Twain refuses, at this point, to reveal to you. Tom's craftiness surfaces here. He had planned all along to reveal his scheme, but only as a "last seduction" to keep the boys on the island. The ploy works. After lunch, Huck teaches his friends how to smoke. Tom and Joe pretend to like smoking. But the dominant feeling is nausea. Joe excuses himself by saying he must hunt for his knife, and Tom offers to help. An hour later, Huck looks for them and finds them asleep. There are indications that both have been sick. That night, Joe wakes his friends as a storm brews. The boys sit by the fire, waiting for something to happen. Beyond the fire, "everything was swallowed up in the blackness of darkness"- one of Twain's favorite biblical phrases. It comes from the New Testament Book of Jude, where false teachers are compared with shooting stars that flare up only to be lost forever "in the blackness of darkness." Saturday morning, they sleep a little in the sun and are soon overcome with homesickness. Tom manages to lift their spirits by organizing a game of Indians, and they pass the day chasing each other around the island. For Tom and Joe, the day is almost ruined at the end, when, according to customs they've read or heard about, they must puff a peace pipe. To their delight, they discover that this time they don't get "sick enough to be seriously uncomfortable." After supper, they smoke again. This new skill makes them happier than "the scalping and skinning of the Six Nations." This is a reference to the powerful Iroquois confederation- originally of five tribes (the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas, and Cayugas), later of six, after the Tuscaroras joined them around 1722. These tribes dominated the western part of what is today New York State. Twain reveals Tom's secret in this short chapter, which provides the climax of the Jackson's Island adventure. As you read, note how subtly Twain uses irony to bring out the underlying humor of this elaborate practical joke. On Saturday, while the boys are playing Indians on Jackson's Island, the town of St. Petersburg is shrouded with grief. Becky, in tears, wishes she had kept the brass andiron knob "to remember [Tom] by." Elsewhere, children envy those among them who were the last to see the boys alive. On Sunday, the boys' funerals take the place of the regular church service. The minister's "text,"- the New Testament passage that introduces the subject of his sermon- is John 11:25- 26. In this passage, common at funerals, Jesus promises life after death to people who believe Him to be the resurrection and the life"- the giver of eternal life. Would the boys qualify as believers? For evidence, you might reread Tom and Huck's exchange inside the tannery in Chapter 10. As if on cue, a miracle occurs. The boys are resurrected, just as the Bible passage promised they would be. Tom, Joe, and Huck march up the aisle after having heard their funeral sermon from the empty gallery above the congregation. Twain reveals Tom's secret scheme at last. Dumbfounded, the minister orders the congregation to sing the Doxology- a hymn of praise for God. ("Old Hundred," the tune to which the Doxology is sung, is so called because Psalm 100 was once sung to it.) Tom swells with pride, confessing to himself "that this was the proudest moment of his life." Remarkably, no one is angry with the boys. The townspeople have had such a good time that they feel it was worth being "sold" (tricked) and made to look ridiculous.