huckleberry finn, questions - last questions

Chapter 40-43

1. We learn that Jim has a very good heart. He thinks about others before himself when he risks his freedom for Tom.

2. The Doctor's speech made people don't hate Jim as much as they actually would. To be a doctor you needed (and still need) a high degree and people looked up to them. I think what he did was right in this situation.

3. Tom makes a necklace out of the bullet to show people how brave he is, and that he survived. It can also be kept as a memory for this big adventure he has been through.

4. Huck Finn decides to run away. It shows us that the society he lives in is not for him. He wants freedom to think and act like he wants. He has very strong opinions and that even makes it more difficult for him to live in the corrupt society.

5. The book would be very different if it was told in third person. I think having Huck as the narrator is good because you get a stronger relationship to the story, like you get more dragged in to it. What can be hard with it is that Huck's way to see things are deep. It might look easy, but it is actually very deep thoughts behind it. The hard part is really to understand the deep part of this book. The dialect is not the hard thing.

huckleberry finn, questions - written assignment

Chapter 35 - 39

Mark Twain's contrast between romanticism and realism is evident stated in this novel. He uses Tom Sawyer as a symbol of romanticism, and I would also say the society. This is all compared to Huckleberry Finn who is very realistic. The book will also show us that Huck is the one who is right. His simple soul is able to watch events from the outside, but without blameing people. I think romanticism was just too much for Mark Twain.

It's clear that Huck changes when Tom Sawyer comes back. He starts to go by Tom's plans in stead of making his own. This affects Jim's freedom because Huck just wants to get him out of the plantation, while the romantic Tom wants to do all kind of unnecessary things to get him free and he only does it for his own adventure. I think what Twain tries to show us is that Huck as a realist is a better person. Romanticism is too much drama for Twain.

To make Jim a real prisoner, Tom brings up all kinds of animales that symbolizes the romanticism. He says he needs it, but Jim doesn't want to. So Tom gets mad, and makes Jim apologize to him (chapter 38). In chapter 39 Tom writes some annomus letters to the Phelps family. All this shows us how big deal Tom has to make out of things. They don't really make any sense, it's all to his own adventure.

huckleberry finn, questions - chapter 31-35

Chapter 31-35


1. Chapter 31 is the climax because Huckleberry actually takes action in his own responsibility. Until now he has just gone with the flow, but now that something very serious and important happened he has to make an important decision. He decides to go against society, which shows how good he really is. 


2. The irony in the statement "All right, then, I'll go to hell" is that it's true words in Hucks mind. He really believes he is going to hell.


3. The beginning of chapter 32 describes the plantation where Jim currently lives. It's described as very lonesome, abandoned western-like farm. It symbolizes Huck's rebirth again. He changes personas. 


4. Huck sees Providence as faith. It shows us that Huck is actually becoming more religious. Miss Watson would agree because she is religious. 


5. When Huck and Mrs. Phelps discuss the "steamboat accident" Huck says it "killed a nigger" and she replies "Well, it's lucky because sometimes people do get hurt" This irony is that she doesn't even consider slaves as human dignity. 


6. The theme thats comes to mind is romanticism vs. realism because it's typical romanticism that Tom Sawyer should appear here. 


7. Huck knows Jim, he has compassion for him and wants him to be free because he cares about him. Tom wants something to happen, he wants an adventure and he'll make a big deal out of everything. (romantic, dramatic)


8. Again, Huck is realistic. He has the ability to see things from the outside, but he doesn't blame anyone for being the way they are.. It shows us Huck's pure and honest soul. 


9. The irony is that Tom allows Huck to steal the watermelon first, but then he blames him for stealing because it's only allowed when something is needed for escaping.

10. Huck lets Tom take control because he is his role model. He is everything Huck wants to be and Huck has missed having him there, he has missed his ideas of adventures. 

huckleberry finn, questions - chapter 26-31

Chapter 26 - 31


1. In chapter 26 Huck steals money to give it to the girls (Mary Jane, Susan and Joanna). In his decision to try to help them goes against the society. If he gets caught he'll get big consequences. In chapter 31 he decides to help Jim escape from the plantation he has been sold to. To help a slave escape is one of the worst crimes you could do in the society, but Huck knows Jim, he sees him as a human with feelings. He knows he is a good person, who cares about other people. He is aware of the consequences he can get, but he is willing to take the chance. He wants justice for Jim, and is willing to do whatever to make Jim get it. It is ironic because it is against society. Especially when in his declaration "All right, then, I'll go to hell". Usually when people say that they don't mean it, but Huck actually does. He really thinks he will go to hell, he takes it very literally. 


2. a) Huck couldn't pray the lie because God would know that he didn't mean it. 
b) In stead of being one of the society, Huck was able to see what was really right. When he wrote down the letter to Miss Watson he saw what could actually happened if he didn't help Jim. He knows that helping Jim is the most right thing to do, and even though it would have consequences. If he wouldn't have helped him the consequences would be bigger (personally) 


3. Huck thinks about all the things that Jim and he has been through together and decides to tear up the letter he wrote to Miss Watson. Jim had actually told him that he was the only one he had, the only friend. Huck couldn't disappoint him now. He also knows a better difference between right and wrong that the society. 

huckleberry finn, questions december 7

Chapter 21-23


1. He describes the residents in the Arkansas town as very cruel people who wants to lynch others, and watch people suffer. This is what the quote from "The Damned Human Race" refers to, how cruel the men (humans) are, that they like to see others in pain.


2. Huck is too smart to participate in the duke and the king's scheme. He knows the truth about the (that they are freuds) and doesn't want any trouble.


3. Mark Twain criticizes the the meaning of honor, which is something that you should be proud of and protect. What happened in the incident of Sherburn and Bogg is that Sherburn kills Bogg because he is being troublesome. When he is killed everyone gather around to watch him. What kind of honor does people show here? Not a very good one....It's a lack of the Southern honor.


4. Would you rather watch Shakespeare than go to a circus? No, I ddidn't think so, unless you are very into it and smart enough to understand Shakespeare. The Duke and the King though Shakespeare would interest people, but it didn't at all!


5. The circus incident shows us that Huck is still just a child, he doesn't get the idea of the show. The trick was not played on the ringmaster, but on the audience. Huck thinks the deceived is the ringmaster.


6. The advertisement for the "Royal Nonesuch" wants to provoke people, and it should because it says that woman and children are not allowed to watch the show.. which means there must be something hidden, a secret. People also often want to watch or know secret things that they are not supposed to.


7. What Mark Twain implies is that real kings and dukes are not very different from the ones in his book. Usually (not in Norway....) royal people wants to take money from people without really doing anything, and use it for their own advantage.  


8. Lizabeth was a girl that had the scarlet fever and got deaf. Jim shows Huck that he cares about this, he feel sorry for her. He reflects on the happenings in his earlier life, how much he misses his family, daughter. The way he reacts to this is what makes good parents and the deeper humanity.


9. Huck was adopted by the Widow Douglas, who made him go to school and go to school. He has rules to follow such as being home on time, speak properly and don't smoke. Jim (which comes in the picture later) is the Widow Douglas' sister, Miss Watson's slave. Huck joins his best friend Tom Sawyer's gang, who are kids that pretend to kill people and steal. They also play a trick on Jim, the slave. 


Huck's dad, Pap, comes in the picture and he wants money from Huck. (Huck had a lot of money in the bank) To make sure Pap doesn't get it he gives the money to the judge. Pap also "kidnaps" Huck, and they live together in Illinois Shore. Pap doesn't like the fact that the Widow Douglas has tried to give him an opportunity to get an education, so he takes him out of school and he gets to do whatever he wants to go again. Pap also locks the door when he is gone so Huck won't get out. In the beginning Huck likes it, but then his dad starts hallucinate from drinking too much, he tries to kill Huck and calls him the Angel of death which feds Huck up and he decides to escape. While his dad is in town he ruins his own house before he breaks out so people think he was killed and then he  flees on a canoe to the Jackson Island. 


He stays there for some days before he meets Jim who ran away from Miss Watson because she was going to sell him "down the river" (to the south, more accurate New Orleans). Huck plays his second trick on Jim and as a result Jim gets bit by a snake, which shows us that he is superstitious. Huck and Jim go to a floating house where they find a dead man, and they take some stuff from the house. Jim does not want to talk about the man's deaths. 


Later they decide that they need to know what people think actually happened to them, so Huck dresses up as a girl so people can't see that it is him, and he goes back to the town. The lady he talks to is new and only know a little bit, but enough  for Huck to know what is going on. The lady reveals Huck, but he keeps telling stories about who he is and how he came there and he "survives". The lady also tells him that her husband and some other people are looking for Jim, and the one who finds him will get a huge amount of money ($300). She tells him that her husband saw smoke on the Jackson Island, and was heading there. Huck realizes that he does not have much time, and he hurries back to the island where Jim is. 


They leave the island floating beyond the river on their raft. They encounter a steamboat called the Walter Scott, where there is a real gang. Huck lies to them saying that he is son of a rich man, and his family is on the boat. He tries to save the murders (and himself) because he has compassion for them, he will, after all, might be a murder one day too. 


Huck plays a third trick on Jim, which involves that they get lost in the fog. When they find each other again Jim gets very relieved because he though that Huck might drowned. Their raft gets hit by a steamboat and they get lost. Huck goes to a house where the Grangerfors live. He is been taken good care of and becomes friends with the family's son, Buck. Buck tells Huck about the freud, and the other family, the Shepherdsons. Buck's sister run away with a man from the other family, and when people hear about this they "freud" starts, and eventually Buck gets killed. One of the Grangerfors' slaves show Huck where Jim is... 


Huck and Jim runs away together again, and out on the river they meet two drunks, runaways that pretend to be the Duke and the King. Huck understands that they are not real dukes and kings, but is smart enough not to tell them he knows it. They go into town where the Duke and the King are acting Shakespeare, but no one show any interest for it, so they do the "Royal Nonesuch" instead, and people come to watch it. What they do it that they lure the people and use the money for their own advantage. 


Then Bugg and Sherburn gets into a fight, and Sherburn killes Bugg. People are all crowded around him to watch what happened (Bugg). Huck doesnt really understand what's going on now, he misunderstands.

huckleberry finn, questions december 2

Chapter 15-20

1. In the fog, Jim and Huck are lost, when they get out of it, on the clear river they find each other again. We can compare the river to the induvidual because they have freedom there, and they can do whatever they want. The fog is the society because it blinds them and they don’t have any power there. They are lost. This will happened several times in the book, and we can look at it as death – rebirth.

2. Huck feels like he have to say sorry to Jim because he hurt him. Huck sees him as a human now, and knows he has feeling too.

3. a) Huck helped Jim run away, and he is a bad person from the society view now. Slaves were people’s property, and he has “stolen” a slave and helped him become free. This was the worst thing you could do besides murder.

b) Irony: that he has to steel his own children if he can’t buy them..

c) Why do the right thing when the wrong thing to do it easier, and it will all be the same in the end..

d) Jim is blaming the bad luck on the snake. They have to pass the Ohio River to go to the Mississippi river or else they will go down south, which is very bad, especially if you’re a slave.

4. The bounty hunters (slave hunters) give Huck a lot of money because of the fake story Huck told them about his father being sick. The irony is that they are not really evil persons, and they do feel sorry for him. They just don’t want to get sick too.

5. The “naturally” created raft is Huck and Jim. They are living away from the society. The “industrially” created steamboat is the society. It symbolizes Individual vs. society.

6. Mark Twain put Huckleberry Finn aside for a few years because it wasn’t what he wanted to write about. He wanted to write about Tom Sawyer. In stead he started to write a book called “Life on Mississippi”, which was about his own adventures down the Mississippi river. He met interesting people that gave him the inspiration to write on Huckleberry Finn again. The book was published 20 years after the slavery was over, because now organizations as The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) had (and still has) extremely much against black people having their rights, Christianity and people who support black people’s rights. I guess he wanted to open people’s eyes more to see how stupid it was and that discrimination to black people were still going on.

7. The satirical about it is that it is that it is romantic. The irony is the romantic idea of death, which mark Twain is making fun of. They go to church because they are “good” people, and worship God, but they also bring weapons and the first thing they do when they get out of church is to kill members of the other family (The Feud, Romeo and Juliet). It doesn’t make any sense, and Mark Twain is making fun of it.

8. Huck plays on Buck’s gullibility because has “better” values to society than Huck has. Huck is able to see how silly “The Feuds” (romantic) are, because he is not involved in it.

9. When Buck asks Huck about “Moses and the candle” he says he doesn’t know anything about it. Huck also thinks that Buck asks him a real, serious question, and this shows us how realist he is. Huck can symbolize Moses because he frees Jim from slavery. It shows us that you can do the right thing without being religious. (this is what Mark Twain tries to tell us.)

10. Hogs that sleep under the floor go to church whenever while the families only do it when they have to. The first thing the families do when the go out of church is to kill each other, which is the opposite of Christianity. This is wrong, and you shouldn’t go to church just because everyone else does it, it should mean something to you.

11. The Feud reminds me of Shakespeare’s, Romeo and Juliet. You have the two families that don’t like each other, after one person from one of the family kills another person from the other family, this family kills another member of the family that killed one of their members. (Wow, what a good explanation.) The reason they do it is wrong, and they don’t even know why they do it. Buck says its fun, which is crazy?? It is not fun that several people in your family get killed just because you had “fun” killing someone from the other family.

12. Is symbolizes the freedom Huck and Jim have on the raft. They are free souls, and the corrupted society is not for them. Freedom/individual vs. society.

13. Huck and Jim are almost naked on the raft and it represents their free souls.

14. Huck doesn’t expose the Duke and the King (Dauphin) as frauds because he doesn’t want trouble. If it is one thing he has learnt from his father it is that you shouldn’t mess with people like that, because they wont change their opinion, and they will only make trouble for you. It also shows that he is a free soul, he let people be themselves, without having any trouble with it. He has grown he is more mature now.

15. Huck is the most shrewd because he is not being honest to what he knows about the Duke and the King.

16. Romeo and Juliet written by Shakespeare is ROMANTIC! Mark Twain Is making fun of romanticism.  Examples are the feud, Duke and the King!

17. The King pretends to be a pirate who has been saved. Now he wants to go back, but he only needs money. Mark Twain the gullibility of people.

18. Yes. The Duke and the King, that they call themselves are not good persons as their names say. I think that Mark Twain tries to reflect the society through them. Just as the society has “good values” (they go to church) the Duke and the King has names from people that are supposed to be good, but they are not. The society is corrupt!