The fourth subtype is what I call sincere but misguided self-deprecation. As
the term suggests, this bonding unreliability occurs along the axis of ethics/
evaluation, and it depends on the coexistence of two judgments, one about the
presence of sincere self-deprecation and the other about why the self-depre-
cation is misguided. The passages in chapter 31 recounting Huck’s decision to
go to hell are illuminating examples.
I knowed very well why [the words of my prayer] wouldn’t come. It was
because my heart warn’t right; it was because I warn’t square; it was because
I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me
I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth
say I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that
nigger’s owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was
a lie—and He knowed it. You can’t pray a lie—I found that out. (200)Here we have the first steps in Twain’s use of sincere but misguided self-depre-
cation. Huck judges himself to be ethically deficient, while the implied Twain
guides his rhetorical readers to judge Huck’s inability to act against Jim’s inter-
est as a sign that he is acting according to a higher ethical standard.
Huck then writes the letter to Miss Watson, telling her of Jim’s location,
so that he’ll be able to pray for help to stop sinning, and he immediately feels
better. But before he prays, he starts thinking about the river trip, and his
reliability as reporter, reader, and regarder reinforces the previous bonding
unreliability through sincere but misguided self-deprecation:
And [I] got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before
me, all the time, in the day, and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight,
sometimes storms, and we a floating along, talking, and singing, and laugh-
ing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against
him, but only the other kind . . . and at last I struck the time I saved him by
telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I
was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got
now; and then I happened to look around, and see that paper. (200–201)Thus, when he makes his decision to tear up that paper and evaluates his
action most negatively, rhetorical readers feel their strongest sympathy for
him and the greatest ethical approval of his actions.
“All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up.ESTRANgINg UNRELIABILITY, BONDINg UNRELIABILITY • 107