Huck Discussion Questions: XV - XX

1. Jim says that the towheads and fog represent people, society, and that the clear river represents the freedom. Huck was lost in the towheads and fog, meaning he was lost in the ways of society, but eventually makes his way to Jim, the realization that he is another person, not just a slave. This backs up the themes of superstition, slavery, and the individual vs. society. it is foreshadow because it shows that they will get into trouble with all kinds of people, but that eventually they will make it to the free states, or Jim's freedom at least.

2. Huck feels guilty after playing such a mean trick on Jim. After fifteen minutes, Huck finally goes and apologizes to Jim, and doesn't feel stupid for it or anything. This is the first big change in Huck. It backs up the whole anti-racist theme of the novel, that society is wrong, that slaves are people too and should be treated as such, and that we should all just look past our exterior differences and learn to live with each other in peace.

3. "Jim said it made him all over trembly..." - Huck begins to feel guilty and free for helping Jim and not turning him in. He sees it as just stealing someone else's property. He is having an internal battle between society, and what he believes to be true.

"Here was this nigger..." - Huck feels guilty for stealing someone's property, especially since Jim plans on stealing his children back, which would be even more property theft, and damage toward a man Huck didn't even know. It is ironic because normally people don't think of their children, or someone else's children, as property that can just be stolen. Huck doesn't think twice about "borrowing" food, but he does when slaves are being stolen, showing that Huck is still a product of society.

"Well, then, says I..." - If Huck tells on Jim, he'll feel bad, but if he doesn't he feel just as bad. He sees no point in doing, right, if wrong is easier and the outcome is just the same.

"Doan' less' talk about it, Huck..." - Jim doesn't blame Huck for them not making it to Cairo. He figures he doesn't have any good luck anyway. This is connected to the theme of superstition.

All of these quotes show Huck's struggle between what society says is right, and what he himself believes to be right.

4. The bounty hunters, which are looking to ruin innocent people's lives, are helpful, give Huck money because they feel sorry for him and his "pap" and want to help them, but can't go near the raft for fear that they would get smallpox. It is also ironic because the very man they're looking for is on that raft, and they just aided him without knowing it, and that they tell Huck not to tell anybody about the smallpox, but they can't go help because they don't want to catch it.

5. It symbolizes society, and industrialization, tearing apart the natural foundation our world was built upon (like all men being created equal, a natural right), and nature itself.

6. Twain didn't like where the first part of Huck Finn was going, so he stopped writing, took a trip down the Mississippi, and had a great realization that led him to begin writing again, especially more about the hypocrisy of society and Huck's conflict.

7. They have a lot of fancy, gaudy decorations, but they're house is clean and orderly, decorated with depressing pictures and poetry. They have pictures of battle on their walls and books on Friendship's Offering and Family Medicine, which is ironic because they're obviously in a feud with another family, the Shepherdsons. They seem to have a romantic view of life and death.

8. Huck's cunning way to get Buck to remind him of his name backs up the theme of gullibility. The way the Grangerfords act, though they are in the middle of a deadly feud, represents the theme of appearance vs. reality. The Grangerford's sense of romanticism represents the conflict between realism and romanticism. The Grangerfords themselves represent society.

9. That he doesn't understand jokes about the Bible, and can't really recognize them, because he doesn't know very much about it, and isn't sure if it is a joke or not. Moses appears throughout the novel as a motif. It also perhaps shows that Huck is a little naive.

10. Twain is being satirical towards religion, especially religious people, because the Shepherdsons and Grangerfords go to church, taking their guns with them, hear a sermon about brotherly love, discuss how much they enjoyed it, yet then proceed to continue in their death-causing feud. Pigs sleep in the church, and are in it more than the people are.

11. The feud symbolizes society and tradition, how we don't even necessarily have reasons for what we do, and fight just to fight, and cause so much unnecessary death, regardless of whether or not we even remember what we're fighting about. It reminds me of Romeo and Juliet, the feud between the Capulets and the Montagues, and the two not-meant-to-be, young lovers.

12. One would think that Huck and Jim might be glad to be in civilization, with a bed and food, but instead they are happy to be back on the raft, away from everyone else, peaceful and lazy. This represents the enjoyment they take in their separation from society, and thus the troubles that come with it, represented by the feud. It backs up the theme of freedom, as they are truly free on the raft, and the conflict Huck and Jim have with the society they are supposed to conform to.

13. Clothes represent society, and being confined to it, so Jim and Huck's nakedness symbolizes their freedom from society and disattachment from the world.

14. Huck doesn't want to cause any quarrels between any of them. He deals with them as he would his pap.

15. I think that the King and the Duke are more shrewd than Huck. It takes more perceptiveness to come to the conclusion that Jim is a runaway slave, than it does to see that the two con men are obviously not a king and a duke. Huck also has the good judgement to know that they aren't really royalty, and avoid quarrels by not bringing it up though.

16. The satire of the con men presenting Romeo and Juliet is mocking romanticism. Romeo and Juliet is a motif, it appears throughout the story, and represents society and the battle between romanticism and realism.

17.

18.