For the characters in the two books, the scene is something completely extraordinary. It is a joining power, a departure, a threat, and above all an image of the considerations of Antonia and Huck, the focal characters. The two scenes vary clearly in appearance. The occasionally fierce, at times tranquil waters of the Mississippi, changing course with each ship that moves down along it, balance obviously with the moving prairies of the eternity level fields of Nebraska and the southwest. Neither appears to have a start or an end, proceeding on forever.
