Chapters 32-43
The Rescue and Happy Endings: Realism vs. Romanticism, Reality vs. Imagination

Homework Due Feb. 25

1. Questions, Quotes, Activities for Chapters 32-432. Huck Finn Final Project - listed below

QUESTIONS

1. Define the words “adventure” and “heroism” as Huck would and as Tom would. Then compare each boy’s idea of how Jim should be rescued, according to these definitions. Who is the hero of this novel, Huck or Jim? List ways in which each has proven his heroism. 
2. Why does Tom Sawyer so readily agree to rescue Jim, when Huck has understood that Tom hates abolitionists? Is Tom changed by his effort to save Jim? 
3. How are heart and conscience in conflict in Huck’s seeing Jim as his friend and family, and as a slave? What details of their trip down the Mississippi does Huck recall that soften him towards Jim? How has Jim helped Huck be a better person? 
4. Compare Pap and Jim as father figures to Huck. How has their treatment affected Huck’s view of family? (Is Jim’s mistreatment of his deaf daughter comparable to Pap’s abuse of Huck?) 
5. Several characters have kept secrets from others in the novel. Jim doesn’t tell Huck he is free of Pap. Tom doesn’t tell Jim he was freed on Miss Watson’s death. Huck doesn’t tell Jim that the King and Duke are scoundrels and conmen. How would these truths have changed the outcome of the novel and the characters themselves had they been revealed? Is keeping a secret the same as a lie in these cases? 

QUOTATIONS

1. “I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come; for I’d noticed that Providence always did put the right words in my mouth if I left it alone” (212). 
2. “You’ll say it’s dirty, low-down business; but what if it is? I’m low down; and I’m a- going to steal him, and I want you to keep mum and not let on. Will you?” (218). 
3. “I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn’t ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another” (223). 
4. “Here was a boy that was respectable and well brung up; and had a character to lose; and folks at home that had characters; and he was bright and not leather-headed; and knowing and not ignorant; and not mean, but kind; and yet here he was, without anymore pride, or rightness, or feeling, than to stoop to this business, and make himself a shame, and his family a shame, before everybody. I couldn’t understand it no way at all. It was outrageous, and I knowed I ought to just up and tell him so; and so be his true friend, and let him quit the thing right where he was and save himself” (225). 
5. “Tom was in high spirits. He said it was the best fun he ever had in his life, and the most interlectural; and said if he only could see his way to it we would keep it up all the rest of our lives and leave Jim to our children to get out; for he believed Jim would come to like it better and better the more he got used to it” (239). 
6. “I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he’d say what he did say—so it was all right now, and I told Tom I was a-going for a doctor” (263). 
7. “...there ain’t nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I’d ‘a’ knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn’t ‘a’ tackled it, and ain’t a-going to no more” (279). 
8. “But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before” (279). 

ACTIVITIES

1. Which characters are dynamic? Chart them and the ways in which they have changed during the novel. What has each character learned? How has Twain used them in the novel to change his readers? 
2. Critics have complained that the rescue at Phelps’ farm is rife with coincidence and is overall problematic to the rest of the work. What do you see as the problems this section presents to readers? Does this section change your view of the main characters’ moral development? If so, how? How has Tom sawyer’s insistence on “regulations” for escape forced him into the role of colonizer, Huck into the role of agent of the colonizer, and Jim into the role of the colonized/oppressed? 
3. Since a central theme of the work is escape from “sivilization,” ask students to discuss in what ways Jim and Huck have explored being uncivilized? Have the two avoided civilizing at the close of the novel? Have the two civilized one another? What part does the river play in this discussion? What point is Twain making about freedom? 
   
   
   
   

   Huck Finn Final Project.  Due Feb. 25

   Complete both parts (#1 & #2) below: 

   
   
   
   

   1.  Reading Response/Analysis Paragraphs 

   Choose three of the following topics.  Respond to each the prompt/questions in a good, solid paragraph.  You must support your theories with examples from the novel’s text. Be sure to identify which prompt to which you are responding. 

   1. (a)  What purpose does Twain have in pairing Jim with Huck? In pairing the Duke with the King? In pairing Tom with Huck in the final chapters? 
   2. (b)  How are disguises used in this novel? How are multiple identities/aliases useful to Twain’s characters? In other Twain works? 
   3. (c)  There are a number of accounts of thieves and dishonesty in the novel. Is there honor among these thieves? What is the purpose of these characters in the novel? 
   4. (d)  Who are the villains of this novel? Why are they villains? 
   5. (e)  Who are the heroes of this novel? What makes them heroic? 
   6. (f)  What does Twain satirize in the novel? Why? 
   7. (g)  Agree or disagree that Huck Finn defines American literature and that all modern literature comes from Huck Finn, as Hemingway suggests.
   8. (h)  In what ways is Huck and Jim’s story also the story of America? 
      
      
      
      

      2.  Choose one of the following topics and complete a project in response to the prompt.  You may write an essay, make a powerpoint or Prezi presentation, etc., as long as you thoroughly respond to the prompt.
      

      
      

      Economics

      From the outset of the novel, Huck and Tom are monetarily rich, although Huck is unable to use his money because of Pap. During the escape and adventure with Jim, he encounters people of every socio-economic level. Have students discuss these questions in small groups: How does he come to view wealth? How does Jim define wealth? How have money and the pursuit of wealth driven Huck’s story along the Mississippi? List the characters and events that are shaped by economics. What does their journey teach them about valuing themselves and others? What is a man worth, finally, to Huck, to Jim, and to the 19th century world? 

      
      

       Character Development and Heroism
      Twain uses a motherless child of an abusive father, a teenager who lacks sophistication and is barely literate, as his narrator for these adventures. Although Huck is a picaro, willing to trick, borrow, and lie to assure his survival, he has little confidence in himself, lies, smokes, skips school, and is not entirely sold on living indoors and wearing clothes, much less clean ones. What an interesting choice for a narrator and hero! Ask students why Twain selects this character to tell his story. How would the story have been different if Jim had told the story, rather than Huck? Would you trust Jim’s narration? What kinds of things can Huck do and know that Jim would not have been privy to because of his slave status? If the point of a novel is that the characters will encounter hardships that will change them for the better, what about Huck’s makes for obvious opportunities to change? What in Jim? What in Tom?
      
      
      

      Creative Approaches
      

      1. (a)  Write an opening for the novel in the voice of Jim instead of Huck. How does this point of view differ from Twain’s narrator? 
      2. (d)  In a small group, select scenes that you consider pivotal to Huck Finn’s coming of age and prepare and act out this scene for their class. You should introduce the scene with the reasons for your selection and how Huck changes/ what he learns in the scene.