Huck Finn and Night of the Hunter

1. a) Huck Finn shaped my viewing experience of Night of the Hunter by creating a lens in which I watched the movie with the intent of finding connections between it and the book. In the movie, I noticed how The Pastor was an irresponsible father figure, similar to how Huck's father was irresponsible. Both had an interest in money that belonged to the children. Consequently, Huck, John, and Pearl all realized that the money was too much responsibility for them to handle. Huck decides to give his money to the mayor because he doesn't want to have to deal with his father. John hits The Pastor with the doll full of money when he's at his breaking point, saying he doesn't want it anymore and that it is "too much". Pearl tells The Pastor where the money is after much interrogation. All these things point to the fact that children should not be left to control large sums of money.

    b) Both works address the topic of responsibility of adults. Huck Finn has an irresponsible father, and the role of a good parent is taken up by The Widow. This is to show how Huck's father was supposed to act and how he fell severely short of the standards of a good, responsible parent. In Night of the Hunter, the kids' father decides to steal money from a bank in order to give his kids a good life that doesn't involve them roaming the streets. However, the ends don't justify the means in this case, and the money ends up causing lots of problems for the children later on. Their mother doesn't do a much better job, because she invites a murderer into their house and marries him. The Pastor is not a good father-figure either, because he only wants to take the money from the children, and doesn't really care about their well-being (he starves them, lets them get dirty, etc.). The only proper adult figures in the film are the old couple who worries after the family, and Uncle Berdie, who helps John fix the boat him and Pearl use to escape with. And even then, all three of them aren't good parental figures either because the old couple is misled by The Pastor, and Uncle Berdie drinks too much.

3. I don't know if I'd teach Night of the Hunter with Huck Finn. Although I can see the merits of doing so, I don't believe that the two are the best match. Both works are fairly old, so if I had to teach Huck Finn, I would probably pick a newer movie to pair with the book in order to keep students' interest. I'd probably pick Matilda or some other movie about a child with an inappropriate family, and have students focus on how parents should act with their children, and what was wrong with how the parents in the book and film acted. I could also make them focus on things like greed and magic, which are prevalent in both works.