Huck Finn Study Questions

1. Discuss the significance of the fog incident and Jim's interpretation of it. "The lot of towheads was troubles we was going to get into with quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean folks, but if we minded our business and didn't talk back and aggravate them, we would pull through and get out of the fog and into the big clear river, which was the free states, and wouldn't have no more trouble" (64). Consider the major themes as well as foreshadowing.
Huck does not think much of it until later on when he realizes he is being cruel to Jim. Huck being cruel and not realizing the harshness of the situation is a foreshadow to him later feeling bad about the things he has done to Jim.

2. How does Huck feel about playing the trick on Jim? Comment: "It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn't sorry for it afterwards, neither" (65). How does this statement contribute to the overall meaning of the novel?
Even though Huck had to work himself up to apologize to Jim, he did not actually feel sorry. It symbolizes how black people are viewed as not humans but slaves.

3. Discuss the significance of the following quotes from Chapter XVI:

"Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, it made me all 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. I couldn't get it out of my conscience, no how nor no way." (66).
Huck is illegally helping a slave escape freedom and he cannot clear his conscience because of it.

"Here was this nigger which I as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children -- children that belonged to a man I didn't even know; a man that hadn't ever done me no harm." (67). Explain the irony in this quote as well as the significance.


"Well, then, says I, what's the use you learning to do right, when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?" (69).
What is the point of going to school to get an education when you could do illegal things instead and still make the same amount of money.

"Doan' less' talk about it, Huck. Po' niggers can't have no luck. I awluz 'spected dat rattle-snake skin warn't done wid its work." (70).
Jim thinks that all blacks are unlucky, probably due to slavery, after his encounter with a rattlesnake that bites him.
4. Why do the bounty hunters give Huck money? What is ironic about their reaction to Huck's story?

5. What does the destruction of the "naturally" created raft by the "industrially" created steamboat symbolize?

6. Speculate on why Twain put Huckleberry Finn aside for a few years at the end of XVI?
He personally did not like it and thought it was not within his literal ability.

7. Describe the Grangerford house. What is satirical about the furnishings, art, and poetry? What does this description say about the Grangerfords?
It is decorated with the art of their dead daughter, Emily. That they miss their daughter.

8. The first part of Chapter XVII reveals an example of the theme of Huck playing on Buck's gullibility. Discuss this example as well as other examples of the novel's major themes evident in Chapters XVI & XVII.
Gullibility is throughout the novel mainly by Huck's convincing of strangers that his entire family is dead. He is mocking the gullibility of society by portraying a character that tells ridiculous stories that are often believed.

9. What does Huck's reaction to "Moses and the candle" indicate? Discuss the meaning of "Moses" as a motif in the novel.
He does not fully understand riddles, and finds simple solutions to other problems 

10. What does Twain satirize in his description of the church service and the hogs that sleep under the floor?
Everyone brings their guns to church at which a sermon is given about brotherly love and that people forget true meaning of religion.

11. What does the feud symbolize? Does this remind you of another famous piece of literature? Explain. Through the feud incident, Twain satirizes human traits and behaviors. Discuss.
Hatfield and McCoy's, he is mocking common human behavior and how ridiculous it seemingly can be.

12. "I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so clamped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft"(88). Discuss the paradox. Furthermore, this excerpt from the final paragraph of Chapter XVIII is significant in that it pertains to the major themes of the novel. Explain.
It resembles freedom from an oppressive society, on the raft, Huck and Jim both feel as if they are free. The raft for them, resembles freedom