Huckleberry Finn Reading Check

Huckleberry Finn Reading Check
Chapters 12-20

1. What is the irony of the “Walter Scott”? (EXTRA CREDIT)

2. What is Jim’s attitude toward Solomon?

3. What is revealed in the conversation about the Frenchmen?

4. In Chapter 15 several death images strike the reader at once. Examples are: “I hadn’t no more idea which way I was going than a dead man.” “You feel like you are laying dead still on the water” etc. What is the significance of these images?

5. Why does Huck feel free to tease Jim?

6. What is the significance of Jim’s lecture to Huck?

7. What new knowledge of human nature has Huck gained? How does this new knowledge affect Huck?

8. How does Huck battle with his conscience toward his treatment of Jim?
(Consider the legal, social, and religious aspects of 19th century America)

9. What is ironic about Jim’s plans?
10. Note the speech pattern used by the slave hunters. What is significant? What is ironic?

11. What is the purpose of Huck’s “tall-tale”?

12. What is the irony of Huck’s statement, “I won’t let no runaway niggers get by me if I can help it”?


13. Why does Huck take a new name?
14. What is the significance of the remark that Buck will get enough of the battle “in all good time?”

15. Why is Pilgrim’s Progress one of the books mentioned? (EXTRA CREDIT)

16. Why does Twain describe with such detail the physical setting of the Grangerford home?

17. Chapter 18 begins with the comment, “Col. Grangerford was a gentleman, you see.” What does Twain wish the reader to see?

18. What is the irony of the sermon?
19. Who are the only members of the feuding families specifically mentioned as saved from the massacre? Why are they saved?

20. Why does Huck say that there is “no home like a raft”?
21. What is the significance of the many errors and inconsistencies in the claims of the King and the Duke?

22. Huck accepts the outsiders, “for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be satisfied, and feel right and kind toward the others.” Why?

23. What is the significance of Huck’s knowing all along that the two are frauds?

24. What comments about life does the camp meeting evoke?