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.