Discussion Questions on Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry

Finn

1. Compare and contrast society in Twain's time to today's society.

Does time change the "message" of the book?
2. Ernest Hemingway has said that all modern American literature
comes from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. What features
make this book modern? What features make this book
American?
3. What makes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a controversial
and banned book? What makes the book important and popular
in today's world?
4. What elements mark Huckleberry Finn as a mythical or
archetypal story? Does it follow the elements of other genres,
such as the picaresque?
5. In what ways does Huckleberry Finn attack romanticism and
promote realism? In addition to Tom Sawyer, what characters,
scenes, or incidents contribute to this theme?
6. If we assume, as Twain says, that the novel celebrates the
triumph of a "sound heart" over a "deformed conscience," what
are the steps in that process? Look closely at the relationship
between Huck and Jim. What incidents mark steps in Huck's
moral growth? Provide a graphic to aid in viewing this
progression.
7. Huckleberry Finn is celebrated for its style, especially Twain's use
of vernacular speech and dialect. Examine a short section of the
book and explain what kinds of features (sentence structure,
irony, word choice, repetition, and so forth) he uses to achieve
the effects.
8. What kinds of humor occur in the novel? Does Twain use humor
for serious effects? What debt does it owe to Southwestern
humor? to understatement or irony? to set pieces of humorous
dialogue like the "Sollermon" debate?
9. Feminist critics such as Nancy A. Walker and Myra Jehlen
contend that the female characters in the novel are critical to
Huck's growth. Jehlen singles out the Judith Loftus episode as the
point at which Huck becomes a person capable of saving Jim: "By
plunging Huck into the deepest possible limbo of identity," the
episode teaches Huck to question the constraints of gender, and,
by extension, race. Are the female characters significant in this
novel, or could they easily have been omitted? What do they
represent? Discuss.
10. Huckleberry Finn is in some ways a novel in which violence is
mingled with entertainment. In addition to its persistent mention
of death and its motif of unburied bodies (especially those
floating in water), the novel shows Huck witnessing a series of
violent episodes; he also describes a number of entertaining
spectacles. What connection exists in the novel between violence
and entertainment?
11. The ending of Huckleberry Finn, one of its most frequently
discussed features, has been criticized as abrupt, shallow, and
unsatisfying. James Cox, on the other hand, defends the ending
by saying that we are Tom who "safely" frees the slave who is
already free. Would you agree or disagree with this
characterization? Why?
12. Discuss Huckleberry Finn as a social satire. What classes does he
satirize? What characteristics of each class does he criticize?

From Dr. Donna Campbell

Department of English, Washington State University
202J Avery Hall | (509) 335-4831
campbelld@wsu.edu
Skype, Facebook, and IM: drcampbell6676

Activities

13. Construct a timeline that shows the different challenges Huck

Finn has faced since it was published. For each challenge, the
timeline might include quotes from detractors, as well as
responses from the book's defenders.
14. Choose one of the challenges made against the book and design
a poster to express that point of view -- for instance, a poster
that could have been created by the Brooklyn Public Library in
1907 warning parents not to let children read the book. You don't
have to agree with the point of view they portray, just convey it
accurately. Present their posters and explain the challenge they
have represented.
15. Research a current arts controversy through newspaper and
magazine articles, as well as the Internet. Keep a compare-and-
contrast journal between that current controversy and Huck
Finn. They might consider how political, cultural, historical, and
other factors play a role in the two controversies. At the end of
the unit, have them present a comparison in the form of an
essay, chart, dialogue, or collage.
16. Investigate the historical and societal factors surrounding the
novel, such as West African civilization, the Middle Passage,
slave religion, abolition, and Reconstruction and its aftermath. Be
sure to explain how your topic is connected to the novel.
(found on PBS.org)

Racial stereotyping:

Dunbar, Paul Laurence. "We Wear the Mask." In Crossing the

Danger Water: Three Hundred Years of African-American Writing,
edited by Deirdre Mullane. New York: Doubleday, 1993, 350.

Hughes, Langston. "Minstrel Man." In Children of Promise: African-

American Literature and Art for Young People, edited by Charles
Sullivan. New York: Harry A. Abrams Publishers, 1991, 36.

17. Present what the Hughes and Dunbar poems express? Provide
an illustration or a graphic organizer for the class.
18.

19. Illustrate why these illustrations may now be seen as

offensive, what stereotypes they reflect, and what effect they
might have had on the reader when it was published. How would
they affect your reading now? How does the text of the book
challenge or undermine the stereotypes in the illustrations?

20. Find passages in the novel that reflect the plantation

stereotypes they have studied. (You may want to direct your
study to particular chapters of the book that critics have
targeted, such as Chapter 8 on investing money; the "French
debate" in Chapter 14; Chapter 22 on stealing; Chapter 24 and
the King Lear outfit; Chapter 42 and the entire ending in which
Jim aids wounded Tom.) Does Jim ever go beyond being a
stereotype? If so, when and how?

21. The conventional approach to teaching Huck Finn assumes that

Huck is the hero and center of the story and considers Jim only in
 relation to Huck and his moral growth. In Section III students are
asked to consider a new paradigm. Professor Maghan Keita
explains,
"I ask people to do a juxtaposition when
confronting Jim. Take for a moment the notion
that Huck is not the central character, but Jim is.
How does this change notions of what this book is
about? How is it that he -- a slave and a 'nigger' --
represents all the best qualities in the book, and
how does he humanize Huck? How can Huck rise
to heroic proportions without Jim? Jim teaches him
how to be a hero."
Explore with examples how this is true for the class. Provide a
handout for the class as well, to aid in following your speech.

22. From “Folk Beliefs in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”

Folklore holds an important place in American literature of the 1880's and

1890's. In these decades a strong movement among folklorists to record the
beliefs and lore of former slaves was accompanied by a literary counterpart.
Writers like Joel Chandler Harris and Charles Chesnutt created a body of work
which incorporated these beliefs and tales.

Although The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not a story based on a folk

tale in the way that, for example, Harris' Uncle Remus stories are, folklore
does play an important role in the narrative and in our understanding of Huck.
Explore the ways that the characters of Huck and Jim can be expanded
through the lens of what fold beliefs are apparent in the book.

23. Following their searches in American Memory for sources that

directly relate to what was happening along or near the
Mississippi River between 1850 and 1900, students will do the
following activities:

1. Share the primary source discovered with the class either

by printing the source out or viewing it directly online.
2. Share observations of what is actually seen in the the
source using the analysis worksheets.
3. Share observations from using outside knowledge using
the analysis worksheets.
4. Share conclusions drawn using the analysis worksheets.
5. Question the presenters about the observations and
conclusions.
6. Ask for additional commentary and analysis from the class.
 7. Prove or disprove the observations and conclusions drawn
using any primary or secondary source. Findings will be
reported orally to the class, citing the evidence they found.
8. Summarize what he or she has learned about what was
happening along or near the Mississippi River between
1850 and 1900 in a 500–750 word paper.

After all presentations are completed, the class as a whole will

compare the observations and conclusions drawn.

Following individual and group work, the instructor and students will integrate each
student-chosen primary source into the reading of the novel The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn as correlations to Mark Twain and what was happening along or
near the Mississippi River between 1850 and 1900 arise during the reading.