Question

"Mornings, before daylight, I slipped into corn fields and borrowed a watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or things of that kind. Pap always said it warn’t no harm to borrow things, if you was meaning to pay them back, sometimes; but the widow said it warn’t anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it." Explain.

Answer 1

Answer:

Given excerpt is taken from "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain.

Explanation:

The novel opens by taking back the readers to the novel that preceded Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer. This novel is the sequel of Tom Sawyer.

Huck lives with his father who is indulged into drunkenness. Huck is adopted by the Widow Douglas. She is a kind lady and tries to improve Huck.

In Chapter 12, when Jim and Huck were rafting away, they would steal the food to feed themselves. Huck shares that his Pap told him that this is not "stealing" but "borrowing." But Widow Douglas, corrected him saying that it is stealing only.

This moral lessons received by Huck from both of his guardians shows the conflict of upbringing and the struggle of Huck to be civilized.

This quote is significant in the novel as it reveals the theme of the novel also.