Modern Adaptation:

Prompt: Choose a passage from Huckleberry Finn that is primarily dialogue (conversation) and that directly relates to a theme we have discussed in this class. It should be 1-2 pages in length. Then re-write that passage so that it still addresses the same theme and makes more or less the same point about it, but in an entirely different setting (time and place). You must choose a setting that has a distinctive atmosphere that you will be able to capture in your characters’ style of speech, just as Twain captures the atmosphere of the Mississippi River in 1840.

Selected Passage from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“ I don’t like shooting from behind a bush. Why didn’t you step into the road, my boy?”

“The Shepherdsons don’t, father. They always take advantage.”

Miss Charlotte she held her head up like a queen while Buck was telling his tale, and her nostrils spread and her eyes snapped. The two young men looked dark, but never said nothing. Miss Sophia she turned pale, but the color come back when she found the man warn’t hurt.”

Soon as I could get Buck down by the corn-cribs under the trees by ourselves, I says:

“Did you want to kill him, Buck?”

“Well, I bet I did.”

“What did he do to you?”

“Him? He never done nothing to me.”

“Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?”

“Why, nothing– only it’s on account of the feud.”

“What’s a feud?”

“Why, where was you raised? Don’t you know what a feud is?”

“Never heard of it before– tell me about it.”

“Well,” says Buck, “ a feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that others man’s brother kills him; then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the cousins chip in– and by and by everybody’s killed off, and there ain’t no more feud. But it’s kind of slow, and takes a long time.

“Has this one been going on long, Buck?”

“Well, I should reckon! It started thirty year ago, or som’ers along there. There was trouble ‘bout something, and then a lawsuit to settle it; and the suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and shot the man that won the suit– which he would naturally do, of course. Anybody would.”

“What was the trouble about, Buck? – land?”

“I reckon maybe – I don’t know.”

“Well, who done the shooting? Was it a Grangerford or a Shepherdson?”

“Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago.”

“Don’t anybody know?”

“Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the other old people; but they don’t know now what the row was about in the first place.”

“Has there been many killed, Buck?”

“Yes; right smart chance of funerals. But they don’t always kill. Pa’s got a few buckshot in him; but he don’t mind it ‘cuz he don’t weigh much, anyway. Bob’s been carved up some with a bowie, and Tom’s been hurt once or twice.”

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (New York: Bantam Classic, 2003), p. 107-8.

Original Adaptation by Ndella Fall:

“I can’t wait to eat lunch bruh I’m literally starving. You think they got chicken tenders today?” I asked as we walked towards the cafeteria, feeling as though my insides began to digest themselves.

Danae glanced to the side at me and giggled, “What, don’t you be eating at home or sumn? Those chicken tenders are not that good for you to be feening like that girl.”

“I mean I do, but something about those chicken tenders just be hittin’ different. I feel like they’re lowkey even better than the ones they be servin’ at Chick-fil-A.”

“You’re trippin, I would never– oh look who it is,” Danae says as her tone changes and the octave in her voice drops. I follow her gaze to realize what the source of her sudden discontent was, and it was one of our classmates named Aniyah. I never really knew Aniyah well enough to foster any strong sentiments towards her, but from the way I have seen her act she seemed like an okay person to me. I was mildly confused by Danae’s reaction so I asked her,

“You don’t like her?”

“Girl, I cannot stand her.” she says with an even greater intensity and disgust in her voice. I see Aniyah glance at us as we finally make our way into the cafeteria and Danae rolls her eyes very clearly. I figured she wanted Aniyah to know just how much she disliked her.

“What she do to you? You never mentioned anything about hating her before and now you seem like you ready to fight her.”

“Oh yea, we beefin now ‘cause my sister told me that Aniyah’s sister did her dirty when they were in school. You know how much I love my sister, so I’m not liking anyone in the same bloodline as someone who wronged her.”

I scrunch my eyebrows and look at her sideways, because I genuinely expected there to be something grandiose Aniyah directly did to her. So when I heard she didn’t like Aniyah because of something that never even happened to her, it confused me even more.

“Didn’t your sister go here like 3 years ago? Why you stuck on something that one, happened forever ago, and two, didn’t even happen to you?”

“Girl, it doesn’t really matter how long ago it was, and I really don’t care if she did anything to me or not. Beef is beef no matter what, if my sister don’t like her sister, then I don’t like her. It's about the principle, you know?” Danae finishes her sentence off with a sort of pride and confidence in what she just said. I can tell she truly believes that she was doing the right and honorable thing by continuing her sister’s hatred of Aniyah and her family. I still couldn’t grasp the concept of hating someone’s sister, not even just the person but the sister of the person who did something to your sister. Nothing in the conflict had anything to do with Danae and how she should feel about Aniyah. It seemed like such a simple concept to Danae to hate Aniyah, like it was just second nature and automatic to her, so I started getting frustrated at the fact that it was not clicking in my brain. Why couldn’t I naturally hate her based on the simple fact that my close friend hated her? Is there something wrong with me, was I not loyal enough to Danae?  Then I thought to myself, maybe if I knew what Aniyah’s sister actually did, I could start to hate Aniyah like I properly should. So I ask Danae, 

She rambles as we join the lunch line and continues to stare Aniyah down from across the room, where she is sitting with a group of her friends.

“So you don’t know exactly what she did right?” I asked again. At this point, I’m feeling more lost than ever, and I start to experience some sort of guilt and inferiority at my lack of understanding of this concept Danae so easily assumes into her life. I never heard anything like this at my elementary school. Whenever someone didn’t like another person, it was simply because that person wronged them in some way, or the farthest it would go is that person wronged their close friend. However, this certain kind of dislike by simple association just couldn’t reach the inner depths of my brain.

“No, ion know what she did. I don’t need to because I don’t care, but yea.” 

“Well, then what are you really fighting for?” I continue to struggle to make it make sense to myself.

“I guess I’m just fighting to fight. Fighting for the principle of it. If I don’t keep the beef up then Aniyah and her sister will think that we’re weaker and that they’re better than us. I can’t go like that. It’s about the respect , you know.? Girl it isn’t rocket science, someone Aniyah knows did something to someone I know so now we gotta dead her. That’s all it is.” I remained silent after this because I had nothing else to say, and I didn’t want to keep asking to the point where she would know I don’t agree with this way of thinking. So I just grabbed my chicken tenders, which I wasn’t as excited for anymore because I was now conflicted. Did I not know how the world worked? Did I lack the means to understand what really mattered in the world and within relationships? I didn’t know and I couldn’t figure it out either, so I just let it go.

“I'm geeked, they got chicken tenders,” I say with forced enthusiasm to get off the topic. I guess I just couldn’t be like her, because even after this whole conversation, I still did not and could not dislike Aniyah.