Huck Finn Study – Understanding Key Passages
When you analyze a part of the text as a key passage study, you discuss why it is central to our understanding of the work as
a whole. The passage(s) for study may be a paragraph, a page, or a chapter. The most important word here is key. Your
task is to determine what elements within the passage play a pivotal or key function in the whole novel. Another way to
approach a key passage study is to consider what key components/messages would be missing from the novel if this passage
were not included by the author.
Review the scenes/passages listed below. Then articulate why this scene could be chosen for a KEY PASSAGE study.
What is the point of including this passage? Identify the components of the passage which are pivotal, significant, and vital to
the novel as a whole. Be concise in your wording, but show depth of understanding. Use the models below as examples.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Example 1: Jim and the “witches” (6)
This passage is key to the novel because it…
1. portrays Jim as a stereotypical slave
- emphatic repetition of term “nigger” categorizes Jim as the typical slave
- the lesser educated Jim is the object of entertainment for Tom who is more educated
- suggests slaves can only make sense of strange events through superstition
- makes a generalization: “Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark..” (6)
- suggests that when slaves have a story to tell they exaggerate and become too proud
2. initiates the motifs of Jim’s gullibility and superstition
- Jim’s ignorance makes him gullible, thus easy to take advantage of and the object of pranks
- this scene starts a series of pranks related to Jim’s gullibility and superstition (snakeskin, fog, escape from Phelps farm)
- characterizes those who choose to take advantage of Jim’s weaknesses as insensitive and cruel
3. reveals Jim’s status within his own culture
- “Niggers would come from miles to hear Jim tell about it” (6)—he’s a celebrity for his supernatural connection
- Jim uses his story to gain status and money from his people (like hairball scene)
- suggest s Jim has some knowledge that superstition is a weakness (thus, the reason he is so angry at H after the fog?)
Example 2: Col. Sherburn kills Boggs and denounces the town (143+)
This passage is key to the novel because it…
1. reveals the townspeople’s ignorance and insensitivity
- they reenact Boggs’s death scene for selfish entertainment (with daughter there)
- they behave rudely to view the “show” and toast the performance
- their priorities are wrong; their reenactment takes priority over being outraged at Sherburn’s dastardly deed
2. contributes to the motif of human cruelty throughout the novel (and H’s disgust for it)
- Sherburn murders Boggs in cold blood because he’s annoyed
- Sherburn knows no one can/will stop him, not even with mob mentality
- Sherburn publically reveals their cowardly, flawed nature through a scathing diatribe
- Huck says, “I could ‘a’stayed if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to” (146)
3. uncovers the myth of southern bravery (satire)
- typical southerners are only brave enough to torture the poor, outcast women
- they believe they are brave because their newspapers say they are
- they won’t legally convict for fear of retribution, but will administer justice at night as a masked mob
- there is not a real man among them; they are only brave as a mob
- they are not willing to hold Sherburn accountable, for they turn and leave
Example 3: Emmeline Grangerford’s artwork (100+)
This passage is key to the novel because it…
1. reveals Twains’ satire of romantic, Gothic art
- The false pity or sympathy evoked by elements such as the dead bird becomes satirically ridiculous
- Her artwork is bizarre and tragic, likely reflective of her family’s unnatural obsession with deadly warfare
2. reveals Twain’s satire of obituary poetry, popular in 1800s
- the poetry is overly sentimental, sappy, pathetic, and ridiculous
- Twain uses “ode to Stephen Dowling Bots” as an absurd parody of obituary poetry
- irony: Buck says Em “could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn’t ever have to stop and think” (103)
3. reveals Huck’s sensitive, naïve personality
- Huck perceives Em’s art to be “great” even thought it’s just words “slapped” down without much craft (103)
- Huck empathetically tries to write some poetry about Em, but he “couldn’t seem to make it go somehow” (103)
- Huck never realizes that Em’s morbid art is likely a reflection of her exposure to the carnal feuding in her family
1. Raiding the Spaniards and A-rabs (12+ )
2. Pap’s rant on the government (26+)
This passage is key to the novel because it…
This passage is key to the novel because it…
3. Discussion of King Solomon and the Frenchman (77+)
This passage is key to the novel because it…
4. Huck’s prank on Jim after the fog (84+)
This passage is key to the novel because it…
5. Jim’s freedom and the encounter with bounty hunters (87+)
6. The description of the Grangerford House (100+)
This passage is key to the novel because it…
This passage is key to the novel because it…
7. Huck’s reaction to the Grangerford-Shepherdson feud (114+)
8. The Pokeville pirate scam (129+)
This passage is key to the novel because it…
This passage is key to the novel because it…
9. The description of Bricksville and is inhabitants (138+)
This passage is key to the novel because it…
10. Jim and his daughter (157+)
This passage is key to the novel because it…
11. Huck’s conscience, telling the truth to Mary Jane (176, 188)
12. The moral climax: Huck’s letter (214+)
This passage is key to the novel because it…
This passage is key to the novel because it…
13. The King and Duke are caught (232+)
This passage is key to the novel because it…
14. Tom vs. Huck’s escape plans (234+)
This passage is key to the novel because it…
15. Chapter the Last (291-end)
This passage is key to the novel because it…