THE STORY SO FAR…
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
CHAPTER 1
 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
 Huck and Tom find $6000 each
 Huck lives with Widow Douglas and Miss Watson because
they are going to “civilize” him
 Hypocritical: Widow Douglas disapproves of smoking but
she smokes snuff
 The adults are too strict; Huck wants to be free
 Huck accidently kills a spider
 Superstition: bad luck will occur (foreshadowing)
 Huck sneaks out from Widow Douglas’s house
 Onomatopoeia: me-yow me-yow
STUDY QUESTIONS 1
1. Summarize briefly Huck’s review of the end of Tom
Sawyer’s story.
2. Who is actually more irritating to Huck than the
widow?
3. What omen does Huck receive that the adventures
beginning may be bad or dangerous?
4. Why doesn’t Huck care about “Moses and the
Bulrushers”?
5. Why does Huck decide he wants to go to the bad place?
CHAPTER 2
 Tom plays a joke on Jim, Miss Watson’s slave
 Puts Jim’s hat on a tree
 Superstition: Jim blames it on witches
 Tom creates “Tom Sawyer’s Gang”
 Tom is bossy, leader, violent (child but acts like an
adult)
 Tom is imaginative, dreamer vs Huck is realistic
 Huck offers Miss Watson as family (sacrifice) if he
tells the gang’s secrets
 Huck does not like Miss Watson much
STUDY QUESTIONS 2
1. Who does Huck offer as his “family” that may be
killed if he should reveal the secret of the gang?
2. What does it mean to “ransom” captives?
3. How does Jim account for his hat being hung on a
tree limb and the nickel being left on the table?
CHAPTER 3
 Miss Watson is strict with Huck but Widow Douglas is more
caring
 Huck prefers Widow Douglas’s Providence
 Huck wants to go to hell to be away from Miss Watson and to
be with Tom
 Huck does not understand prayer/ religion
 Religion does not help him to live everyday life (not realistic)
 Superstition: Huck walks under a ladder
 Townspeople believe that Pap drowned but Huck does not
believe it
 Huck has good instinct
 The Tom Sawyer Gang resign because nothing happens
STUDY QUESTIONS 3
1. Whose idea of Providence does Huck prefer?
2. What has become of Huck’s father?
3. What happens to the gang of robbers?
CHAPTER 4
 Huck finds a footprint
 Foreshadowing: looks like Pap’s boot tracks
 Huck is intelligent: “sells” his money to Judge
Thatcher
 Jim tells Huck a fortune with a hairball
 Superstition
 Symbolism: black angel and white angel
 Huck comes home and finds Pap in his room
STUDY QUESTIONS 4
1. Why does Huck want Judge Thatcher to take all his
money?
2. What is a hairball and what properties does it
have?
3. What does Jim say that the hairball tells him?
4. What does Huck find when he returns to his room?
CHAPTER 5
 Pap is dirty, hairy, and pale white
 A drunkard (alcoholic)
 Needs money to buy more drinks
 Huck dislikes Pap
 The new judge wants Huck to live with Pap
 The law cannot/does not protect the weak and
innocent
 The new judge tries to reform/change Pap
 Pap pretends he is changed (superficial, fake)
 Takes advantage of a good-doer for money
STUDY QUESTIONS 5
1. What has Huck’s father come for?
2. What is Pap’s “new life,” and how long does it last?
3. What kind of man is Huck’s father? What would he
be called today? How does Huck react to him?
CHAPTER 6
 Pap wants Huck to quit school
 Does not want his son to be better than him
 Connection to race
 Kidnaps Huck and takes him upriver
 Pap’s beatings are too much and Huck decides to
escape
 Pap gets extremely drunk and blames the
government (gov’t) for his problems
 Racism: Angry at the positive treatment of African
Americans
 Foreshadowing: calls Huck the “Angel of Death”
CHAPTER 7
 Huck finds a drifting canoe
 Huck is resourceful
 Huck escapes
 Takes food and supplies and puts them in the canoe
 Fakes his own death by killing a wild pig and using
its blood -> does not want people to look for him
 Show’s Huck’s intelligence
 Goes to Jackson’s Island
CHAPTER 8
 Huck realizes that people are looking for his dead
body
 Superstition: fill a loaf of bread with quicksilver
(poison) to find a drowned body
 Hypocrisy of the townspeople
 Huck finds Jim
 Jim ran away because Miss Watson is planning sell
him for $800
 Racism/ Slavery
CHAPTER 9
 There is a large storm
 Jim’s prediction in chapter 8 comes true
 Religion vs. Superstition
 Huck and Jim find a house floating and a dead body
inside
 Jim won’t let Huck see the body
 Jim as an adult figure
 Compare to Pap, Widow Douglas and Miss Watson,
Townspeople
STUDY QUESTIONS 5-9
1. Why does Pap yell at Huck for becoming civilized?
2. What was Huck’s plan to escape from his father?
3. What purpose does Huck’s death serve?
4. Why is Jim on Jackson’s island?
CHAPTER 10
 Jim tells Huck that it is bad luck to touch a snake
 Superstition
 Huck plays a prank on Jim
 Jim gets bitten by a snake and is sick for days
 Huck feels bad, grows compassion towards Jim
 Huck realizes the danger of defying superstition and
Jim’s knowledge
 Huck disguises as a girl to hear of the town news
CHAPTER 11
 Huck introduces himself as “Sarah Williams from
Hookerville”
 Hears news about his “death”
 Jim is suspected of murdering Huck $300 reward
 Pap is suspected of murdering Huck $200 reward
 Men are going to hunt Jim to get the money
 Huck and Jim leave Jackson Island
CHAPTER 12
 Huck and Jim continue down the river
 Peaceful and easygoing
 Symbolism: weather and nature
 The two find a steamboat caught on a rock from a
storm and decide to explore
 Two men on the ship have tied down another man
and are threatening him
 Compare to Tom’s pretend gang of robbers
 When Huck tries to prevent the men from escaping,
Jim finds that the raft has floated away
 Huck and Jim are scared but still trying to do good
CHAPTER 13
 Huck and Jim find the raft again
 Steals provisions from the gang
 Begins to storm
 “I begun to worry about the men… I begun to think
how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such
a fix” (p72).
 Huck creates an elaborate story to tell the watchman
about the steamboat
 Steamboat is named the Walter Scott
 Ferryman hurries to the rescue for a “reward”
CHAPTER 14
 Huck and Jim share knowledge
 Friendship, partnership
 “Well, he was right; he was most always right; he had
an uncommon level head, for a nigger” (p76).
 “I read considerable to Jim about kings, and dukes,
and earls and such” (p76).
 Huck and Jim decide that they do not take stock in
King Sollermun’s (Solomon) wisdom
 King Solomon is supposed to be the wisest man alive
(bible)
 They (kings) just sit around, whack heads off, keeps
harems
 “A harem’s a bo’d’n-house, I reck’n” (p77).
STUDY QUESTIONS 10-14
1. What is in the two story house that floats by
Jackson’s Island?
2. Why does Huck dress as a girl to go ashore? What
does he find out?
3. What is the name of the ship in which Huck and
Jim find murderers?
4. What do we learn about Jim from his talking about
“King Sollermun”?
CHAPTER 15
 Huck and Jim are going towards Cairo, Illinois
where they can go up the Ohio River to the free
states
 Bad weather: fog separates Huck and Jim
 When they find each other, Jim is extremely happy
to see Huck again but Huck plays a prank on Jim
 Huck pretends that their separation was a dream
and confuses Jim
 When Huck tells the truth, Jim says that cruel tricks
are like “trash” and it should make friends ashamed
 “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself
up to go and humble myself to a nigger – but I done
it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it afterwards, neither”
(87).
CHAPTER 16
 “Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish
to be so close to freedom” (88).
 “Well, I can tell you it made me all over trembly and
feverish, too, to hear him, because I begun to get it
through my head that he was most free – and who
was to blame for it? Why, me” (88).
 Huck’s internal conflict: struggles with his shame of
helping a slave escape
 Huck decides to turn Jim in but changes his mind
when Jim calls him his “bes’ fren’” (90)
 Huck lies to slave hunters so that Jim would not be
found
 What do the slave hunters and the townspeople have
in common?
 Is Huck a moral or an immoral person?
 Huck and Jim discover that they passed Cairo in the
fog
 A steamboat wrecks the raft and the two are
separated again
CHAPTER 17
 Huck arrives at an impressive house owned by the
Grangerford family
 Grangerfords are hospitable to Huck once they
check that he is not a member of the Shepherdson
family
 The Grangerfords have a son named Buck
 Similar age, close friends
 Wants to kill a Shepherdson
CHAPTER 18
 Colonel Grangerford: gentleman, aristocrat, kind
 What does he represent?
 Easy person in the Grangerford family has his/her own
slave
 Grangerfords and Shepherdsons are feuding
 Killing one another
 No one remembers the reason
 The Grangerfords and Shepherdsons go to church and
learn about brotherly love
 Everyone is carrying a gun
 Huck finds Jim hiding behind some trees with their
raft
 Miss Sophia Grangerford and young Harney
Shepherdson run away together
 The two families shoot at one another
 People die including Buck
 Huck and Jim run away
 “It made me so sick” (116)
 “there warn’t no home like a raft” (117)
 Twain shows the foolishness of humans
STUDY QUESTIONS 15-18
1. What trick does Huck play on Jim?
2. Why doesn’t Huck turn Jim in?
3. Describe the difference between Huck and the
slave hunters.
4. Why did Twain include this adventure with the
Grangerfords?
CHAPTER 19
 Huck helps two men who are chased by men on
horses with dogs
 What does this show you about Huck?
 Huck and Jim could have been in the same situation if
the townspeople found them on Jackson Island or if
the slave hunters found Jim (chapter 16)
 The older man (70years old) was selling fake
toothpaste and the younger man (30years old) was
collecting money to support prohibition although he
was drinking secretly.
 The men trick the townspeople for money
 The townspeople are foolish and gullible for falling
for their tricks
 The two con men decide to work together
 The younger man says that he is the Duke of
Bridgewater
 Duke: high class, just below the king
 The older man then says that he is the Dauphin, the
King of France
 Huck knows that the men are liars but do not say
anything
 Why?
CHAPTER 20
 The duke and the king ask if Jim is a runaway slave
 Huck pretends that Jim is his slave
 Why does he lie?
 The duke and king take Jim and Huck’s beds
 How do the duke and king treat people?
 Huck and Jim have to be lookouts but Jim takes
over when Huck is too sleepy
 Jim takes care of Huck and protects him
 Friendship, parent figure
 In Pokeville, Huck and the king go to a religious
meeting where the people are praying and singing
so hard that they were “just wild and crazy”
 As Huck and Jim go further south, the people they
meet are more wild, savage, intense, prejudiced
 They cannot see the truth because of their stubborn
beliefs and prejudice
SITUATIONAL IRONY
 The duke has an idea on how to travel without
interruptions: he makes a sign with a picture of a
runaway slave and “$200 reward,” then ties Jim
with ropes so they can pretend that they caught him
for the reward money
 Situational irony: What is expected to happen and
what actually happens do not match
 Jim is actually a real runaway slave
 Jim has to pretend to be caught to be free
 There is actually a reward for Jim
CHAPTER 21
 The duke and the king practice their Shakespearean
play “Shakspearean Revival”
 Mark Twain also alludes to Romeo and Juliet during
the Grangerford vs Sheperdson feud
 The duke and the king do not know Shakespeare well
 What kind of people watch/read Shakespeare?
 The town they are in is run down, neglected, and
caving in
 Shakespeare represents Romanticism while the run
down town represents reality
 Colonel Sherburn shoots a drunk man named Boggs
in front of Boggs’s daughter
 Boggs: ordinary man, rude, without manners,
ignorant
 Col. Sherburn: high class, civilized gentleman, unfair
power, law, without sympathy
 Townspeople: watch Boggs’ death, superficial,
without morals, cowardice
CHAPTER 22
 Somebody argues that Sherburn should be lynched
and everyone agrees
 Mob mentality: people act differently in a group
because they do not want to go against the crowd
 The townspeople become violent
 Sherburn says that the people are cowards because
they would not be brave without the mob
 Huck goes to see a circus
 People enjoy seeing a drunk man trying to hold on to
a bucking horse -> cruel, selfish, violent
 Huck is scared to see the danger
CHAPTER 23
 The king and the duke put on a play called “The
Royal Nonesuch”
 Women and children are not allowed to watch
 The audience is angry but they don’t want to admit
that they have been tricked so they do not reveal the
scam
 “What we want is to go out of here quiet, and talk this
show up, and sell the rest of the town! Then we’ll be in
the same boat.”
 Performance goes on for three days
 Jim asks Huck why Huck is not surprised at the
duke and the king’s behavior
 Huck: “It’s the way they’re raised.”
 Jim thinks about his wife and children
 Huck: “I do believe he cared just as much for his
people as white folks does for their’n”
 Jim is thinking about the time when he hit his
daughter, Elizabeth, for not obeying -> he is very
upset because he did not realize she was deaf and
mute
CHAPTER 24
 The duke disguises Jim again by painting his face
blue and making a sign that says
 “Sick Arab – but harmless when not out of his head”
 The group meets a young man by the river
 The king pretends to be Reverend Elexander Blodgett
 The man thinks the king looks like Mr. Wilks, the
brother of a rich man
 The king and the duke decide to pretend to be the
brothers so they can steal the inheritance (money)
 Dead brother: Peter Wilks
 Brothers: Harvey and William (deaf and dumb)
 Lives in England
 Nieces: Mary Jane, Susan, Joanna (hare-lip)
 The king and duke pretends to cry for the dead
brother
 Huck describes them “It was enough to make a body
ashamed of the human race”
CHAPTER 25
 The king and the duke gives all their money to the
girls to gain their trust
 Dr. Robinson is the only one who realizes that the
king and the duke are fakes but no one believes him
 The king uses a bad English accent and uses the
wrong word during the funeral
 The girls give the king and duke all their money to
prove that they trust the king and the duke
STUDY QUESTIONS 19-25
1. How did Jim and Huck meet the king and the
duke?
2. Does Huck believe their stories about their births?
3. Why did people return to see the “Royal
Nonesuch” show?
4. Where did the king and the duke get their plan
about being the Wilks brothers?
CHAPTER 26
 Hare-lip asks Huck questions about England
 Huck makes up lies but he does not feel bad because
he lies only when he needs to and for the right reasons
 She tells Huck to swear on a dictionary
 Huck feels bad that the king and the duke are
stealing the girls’ money so he decides to return it
 Huck steals the money (under the mattress) from
the king and the duke’s hiding place before anyone
finds out
CHAPTER 27
 When Huck is trying to hide the money, he hears a
sound, panics, and puts the money in the coffin
 The coffin is buried, Huck is not sure if the money is
still in the coffin
 The king and duke promise to take the girls with
them to England so that they can sell the house and
the slaves
 When the king and the duke cannot find the money,
Huck lies and says that the slaves stole it
CHAPTER 28
 Mary Jane feels bad about the slaves so Huck
confesses to her that the king and the duke were
fakes
 Huck tells Mary Jane to go to Mr. Lothrop’s because
she is not good at pretending
 Huck write a letter to MJ to tell her where the money
is
 The real Wilks brothers arrive
CHAPTER 29, 30
 The real Wilks brother asks the king to tell the
townspeople what is tattooed on Peter’s chest
 The king says that the tattoo is a small, thin, blue
arrow
 The real brother says that it is P-B-W
 The people dig up the coffin and finds the money
 Huck tries to run away but the king and the duke
catches him
CHAPTER 31
 While the king and the duke are fighting, Huck tries
to run away from them, but he cannot find Jim
 Huck finds out that the king sold Jim to a man
named Silas Phelps for $40
 Self vs. Self Conflict: Huck thinks about whether he
should write a letter to Miss Watson about where
Jim is
 If Jim is a slave anyway, then he is better being a slave
near his family
 But Miss Watson might be mean to him for running
away
 Huck write the letter but thinks about his friendship
with Jim
 “All right, then. I’ll go to hell”
 Huck rips up the letter and decides to help Jim escape
 He does not regret his decision
STUDY QUESTIONS 26-31
1. Why does Huck steal the money from the mattress?
2. What doesn’t Huck’s conscience bother him when
he lies so much?
3. What things give away the king and the duke?
4. Why is it important that Huck says, “All right,
then, I’ll go to hell.”?