Huck Finn Literature
Circle # 3
Chapters 21-29
Summarizer (5-7 minutes)
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Share your assessment of the major events of
chapter 21-29. Make sure you clearly outline
each chapter
Group members may add to the summary, but
be RESPECTFUL
This is a good time to clarify any confusion you
may have had while reading these chapters
Discussion director should make sure everyone
stays on task.
Illustrator (5 minutes)
Share your illustration with your group and
explain why you chose what you did. Make
sure you are detailed.
 Other group members should ask
questions and make connections to what
the summarizer said
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Discussion Director (7-10 minutes)
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Begin asking and discussing your
questions. Make sure you facilitate the
discussion so it lasts the full time period.
Make sure you invite everyone to
participate in the discussion; don’t
monopolize the conversation. Get it going
and then allow others to comment.
Illuminator (7-10 minutes)
Share your passages and insights. Make
sure you tell your group the page number.
 This is a good time to discuss the
passages, add to the discussion as the
illuminator shares (discussion director, you
should be exceptionally perceptive in
adding your thoughts here)

Word Watcher (5-7 minutes)
Share the words and their significance
with particular attention paid to
historical/biographical significance—
 If you do not have a word watcher, you
should work together as a group to find
important words in the passage to record.
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Connector (7-10 minutes)
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Share your connections to the text and encourage your
group to add their own thoughts to your connections.
Complete the different steps 1 and 3 for a feminist
reading paying particular attention to Mary Jane,
Susannah, and Joanna Wilkes, Emeline and Sophie
Grangerford, and Mrs. Loftus. Then as a group draw a
conclusion about how Mark Twain views the female role
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Step 1: Consider the roles and situations of female characters
(or lack thereof). Make lists of different aspects of the female
character's place in the overall story. Include anecdotal
scenarios
Step 3: Review the role of female characters in relation to their
male counterparts. Literary criticism has its famous set of
contrasts, for example, man vs. nature, nature vs. society, that
set up points of inquiry. In this case, your fundamental contrast
would be woman vs. man.
Next Lit Circle (11/15) chapters 3038
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Discussion director will be
the illuminator
Illuminator will be the
illustrator
Illustrator will be the
connector
Connector will be the
summarizer
Summarizer will be the
discussion director
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Discussion director will be
the illuminator
Illuminator will be the
illustrator
Illustrator will be the
connector
Connector will be the
summarizer
Summarizer will be the
Word Watcher
Word Watcher will be the
discussion director
Huck Finn
chapters 21-29
Females in Huck Finn
Widow Douglas
 Miss Watson
 Mrs. Loftus
 Emeline Grangerford
 Sophie Grangerford
 MaryJane Wilkes
 Susannah Wilkes
 Joannah Wilkes
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Huck’s Morality
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Demonstrated and tested through Mary Jane.
Huck decides that he can’t let the King and
the Duke take all the inheritance money from
Mary Jane, Johanna the harelip and
Susanna.
He hides the money in a __________
 Coffin
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FALLS BACK ON THE STEREOTYPE! Huck
blames the __________. (Huck’s morality
keeps shifting)
 Slaves
Mary Jane
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Mary Jane is a SYMBOL of Good (Who was the
symbol of evil and corruption?)
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PAP
What are some examples?
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Worries over the slaves who will never see their
families again
Huck tells Mary Jane to leave because she can’t lie
Huck is shocked because she prays for him
Huck gives a speech about how perfect she is!
(crush?)
Mary Jane represents all the morality and goodness
that Huck is trying to find within himself
SaTiRe
Mocking society
What’s the point?
Grangerfords and Shepherdsons:
Twain’s Satire Turns Dark
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Targets the cult of Southern aristocracy and the
traditions of dueling and feuding.
Thoughts on death—pg 107
It’s okay to kill if you’re in a feud!
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What is Twain’s tone toward the Grangerfords
and Shepherdsons?
seen through Huck’s
observation: pg. 109 church sermons
 Negative—disdainful:
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Huck calls Col. Grangerford a gentlemen—what
is ironic about this?
 He
goes around shooting at others all day long
Huck and Buck
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What do you notice about the names?
 Huck
becomes very attached to Buck—sees
something of himself in Buck
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Compare Buck and Tom:
 proper
behavior “It’s done because its done”
no other reason. Warning against the dangers
of blind following
Huck sees no honor or tradition in it; he
just sees dead young men. First death—
Buck dies
Without Jim…
Huck feels lost
 Huck is confused
 Huck discovers the cruelties of life
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The Duke & The Dauphin (King)
Conmen and Satire
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Professional conmen- What do they do
to make money?
 Trick
people
 Duke: selling fake products that don’t work
(toothpaste that take tartar and enamel off
your teeth)
 King: running a temperance revival and
charging money each night while drinking
on the sly
 Huck does not believe their story. So why
does he let them stay?
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He wants to avoid conflict
The king himself
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The king is basically and idiot. BUT he is
smarter than the churchgoers!
 What
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Overkill and gullible
 What
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is Twain saying about religious fanatics?
is he saying about the average man?
Easily manipulated
“Royal Nonesuch”
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The sign “Ladies and Children Not Permitted suggests what?
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Who comes to the shows?
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An element of danger and “badness”
What is Twain saying about human beings through this
Satire?
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All the townsmen
Why does it attract a large crowd?
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Scandal
We are easily manipulated to want what we shouldn’t
The men who have been conned decide to let the other men
in the town be conned before the run the King and the Duke
out! What does this say about society’s morality?
We don’t want to be alone in our stupidity
 It’s okay to get revenge
 It’s okay to con if you have been conned
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Sherburn and Boggs: Southern
Bravery?
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Second death: Boggs
Colonel Sherburn: speech is a violent criticism of
the myth of Southern Bravery—compare to
Grangerford episode (criticism of Southern
Honor)
Sherburn compares these people to the KKK
when he says “You didn’t bring a man with
you?”—mob mentality
Twain is making the point that it is better to act
on your own and not through mob mentality.
Dr. Robinson::
The fall of KING and DUKE
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Dr. Robinson tries telling everything they’re
stupid for believing the King/Duke.
When that fails, Dr. Robinson changes his
approach:
He doesn’t accuse them, but SUGGESTS
they may be frauds so the townspeople come
to their own conclusion: allows them to keep
their pride
Changed Language
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Read passages—what do we notice is
different?
 Passage
1: No vernacular
 Passage 2: Vernacular– why?
Twain’s Purpose
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Twain shows that the average man is
fairly incapable of accepting that
someone else may be smarter or wiser
than himself. Only someone on his
level should be revered or heard.