Boggs’s Shooting (ch. 21-22)
By: Seline Ashby, Rosa Castro, Samantha Liets,
Miranda Craig, Teagan Wells, and Nora Kuhn
Plot and Episode Summary Ch. 21
❖ The Duke and the King start to practice their Shakespeare.
❖ Duke is really bad at Shakespeare
❖ The next morning around Arkansas, they print up scripts and start
practicing their play again.
❖ Where they’re performing “is not exactly London”, so they had
hopes of actually succeeding in the performance
❖ The same day, the town drunk, Boggs, comes in wasted (as usual)
❖ Although he makes threats to kill people he dislikes, they’re used his
❖ Boggs makes the mistake of threatening the town’s toughest man,
Sherburn.
❖ Sherburn in turn, threatens Boggs and says “I’m tired of this, but I’ll
endure it till one o’clock.” (Twain 142)
❖ The whole town knows Sherburn is a man of his word
❖ The townspeople go to find his daughter to talk Boggs down
❖ Later, at one like promised, Sherburn comes out with a pistol and
proceeds to shoot Boggs twice, ultimately killing him
❖ After Boggs is killed the townspeople lay a bible underneath his head
Plot and Episode Summary Ch. 22
❖ Mob arrives and Sherburn is calm
❖ Mocks the mob and they leave
❖ The setting changes to a circus
❖ The show is good until a drunken man runs out
❖ Huck is concerned for his safety until the drunken man takes his
clothes off
❖ The Duke and the King perform to the townspeople.
❖ The townspeople didn't understand the play at all
Huck’s Lesson
A.
Lesson Learned: Huck learns that life isn’t all fun and games.
B. How is the lesson learned: When he witnesses Bogg’s being shot he
realizes that not everyone is to be messed around with.
C. Evidence: “Children was heeling it ahead of the mob, screaming and
trying to get out of the way; and every window along the road was full of
women’s heads, and there was nigger boys in every tree, and bucks and
wenches looking over every fence; and as soon as the mob would get
nearly to them they would break and skedaddle back out of reach. Lots of
the women and girls were crying and taking on, scared most to death.”
(Twain 145).
Style/Literary Analysis
Figurative Language:
Simile: “...because sometimes a strip of land as wide as a house caves in
at a time” (Twain 140).
Onomatopoeia: “Bang! goes the first shot, and he staggers back, clawing
at the air--bang!” (Twain 143).
Simile: “...and the front of the wall of the crowd begins to roll in like a
wave” (Twain 145).
Style/Literary Analysis
Mood: Depends on the situation, i.e. before and after Bogg’s was shot
Before the shooting: calm, carefree
❖ “All the loafers looked glad; I reckoned they was always used to
having fun out of Boggs” (Twain 141).
After the shooting: scared, sympathetic
❖ “That young girl screamed out and comes rushing, and down she
throws herself on her father, crying…”.
Style/ Literary Analysis
Tone: Mocking
Towards human nature/ townspeople
❖ “The crowd washed back sudden, and then broke all apart, and
went tearing off in every which way, and Buck Harkness he
heeled it after them, looking tolerable cheap” (Twain 146).
Answers on Study Guide
#1 - The town is the described so carefully in the beginning because
they need to show the difference between this town and where Huck
lived and to allow the audience to get the feeling of the surroundings.
#2 - A very well-dressed fifty-five year old man. He is a respected
member of the town into which Boggs gallops.
#3 - At first, they seemed to be simply in shock; they never thought
something as serious as death could happen. They still didn’t take it
seriously, clamoring to take a look at Boggs’ body as they prepared it.
Afterwards, however,they became roused to anger, and resolved to
lynch Sherburn.
Answers on Study Guide cont.
#4 - They are describing a lynching as if it would be a pleasant social
gathering at which they would accomplish something useful.
#5 - He's commenting on human nature - the ease with which little
people fool themselves into thinking they're bigger and braver and
more important than they actually are or can be.
Bibliography
● Laiken, Deidre S., and Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn. New York, NY: Baronet, 1990. Print.