Hour: __________ Name: ________________________________________________
Literary Devices
Identify the best answer to describe the following literary devices found in The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
1. He had one ankle resting on t'other knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two
of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was laying on the
floor--an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.
A. Alllusion
B. Simile
C. Metaphor
D. Personification
2. The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a
lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it.
A. Irony
B. Allusion
C. Metaphor
D. Personification
3. After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers,
and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses
had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn't care no more about him,
because I don't take no stock in dead people.
A. Allegory
B. Allusion
C. Metaphor
D. Foreshadowing
4. Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time and lighting. Jim said it
was a sign it was going to rain. He said it was a sign when young chickens flew that
way, and so he reckoned it was the same way when young birds done it. I was going to
catch some of them, but Jim wouldn't let me. He said it was death. He said his father
laid mighty sick once, and some of them catched a bird, and his old granny said his
father would die, and he did.
A. Allegory
B. Allusion
C. Metaphor
D. Foreshadowing
5. We could hear her pounding along, but we didn't see her good till she was close.
She aimed right for us. Often they do that and try to see how close they can come
without touching; sometimes the wheel bites off a sweep, and then the pilot sticks his
head out and laughs, and thinks he's mighty smart. Well, here she comes, and we said
she was going to try and shave us; but she didn't seem to be sheering off a bit. She
was a big one, and she was coming in a hurry, too, looking like a black cloud with rows
of glow-worms around it; but all of a sudden she bulged out, big and scary, with a long
row of wide-open furnace doors shining like red-hot teeth, and her monstrous bows and
guards hanging right over us. There was a yell at us, and a jingling of bells to stop the
engines, a powwow of cussing, and whistling of steam--and as Jim went overboard on
one side and I on the other, she come smashing straight through the raft.
A. Symbolism
B. Allegory
C. Personification
D. Metaphor
6. Select the best description of tone reflected by each passage.
"I wish I'd never seen that snake-skin, Jim--I do wish I'd never laid eyes on it."
"It ain't yo' fault, Huck; you didn' know. Don't you blame yo'self 'bout it."
When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water inshore, sure enough, and outside
was the old regular Muddy! So it was all up with Cairo.
We talked it all over. It wouldn't do to take to the shore; we couldn't take the raft up the
stream, of course. There warn't no way but to wait for dark, and start back in the canoe
and take the chances.
What is the best description of tone for this passage?
A. reluctant
B. sorrowful
C. distressed
D. comforting
7. Select the best example of imagery.
A. Every little while he jumps up and says: "Dah she is?"
B. Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He was saying how the
first thing he would do when he got to a free State he would go to saving up money and
never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was
owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to
buy the two children, and if their master wouldn't sell them, they'd get an Ab'litionist to
go and steal them.
C. We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and got hot. The
river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber on both sides; you couldn't see a
break in it hardly ever, or a light.
D. I buckled to my paddle and they laid to their oars. When we had made a stroke or
two
8. What might a raft symbolize?
A. mobility and liberty
B. a sense of being trapped
C. instability
D. persistence and doggedness
Sentences and Structure
Select the best answer for prompts that follow.
During the morning around 6:00 a.m., I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off of the
clothes-line.
9. What is the subject of this sentence?
A. morning
B. I
C. sheet
D. shirt
10. What is the verb in this sentence?
A. during
B. I
C. borrowed
D. morning
11. Which of the following sentences has correct subject-verb agreement?
A. There was four or five men cavorting around on their horses.
B. The two boys were squatting back to back behind the pile.
C. By and by the men stops cavorting around and yelling.
D. They started to riding towards the store.
12. Which of the following uses pronouns correctly?
A. Every time one of them showed themselves on the river side of the wood pile he got
shot at.
B. All of the men jumped off of they horses and grabbed the hurt one and carried him
home.
C. I was glad to see him when his says, “Laws bless you, Chile!”
D. I found the two bodies laying at the edge of the water and tugged at them until I got
them ashore.
13. Which of the following sentences is correct?
A. We can get you some garter-snakes, and you can tie some buttons on there
tails.
B. Oh, there's one thing I forgot.
C. They were always taking off they’re hats and putting them back on.
D. Their going to find out the hard way.
14. Which of the following sentences is a dependent clause?
A. The river rose
C. When he spoke
B. The crowd applauded
D. The horse reared up and ran off
15. Which of the following sentences is an independent clause?
A. While everyone looked
C. news from the town
B. up and around the bend
D. Buck told the truth
16. “I reckoned she'd let me go now, but I s'pose there was so many strange things
going on she was just in a sweat.
This sentence is combined with which of the following?
A. a pronoun
C. a subordinating conjunction
B. a coordinating conjunction
D. an independent clause
17. I (is, am, are) making this explanation for the reason that without it many readers
would suppose that all these characters (was, were) trying to talk alike and not
succeeding.
A. is, were
B. is, was
C. am, were
D. are, was
18. Which of the following sentences is incorrect?
A. The old man liked that speech, and he mighty soon got it so he could do it first-rate.
B. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain't no matter.
C. Here she was a-bothering about Moses, yet finding a power of fault with me for
doing a thing that had some good in it.
D. We come in sight of a little one-horse town in a big bend, so we tied up about threequarters of a mile above it.