MARK TWAIN
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
CHAPTERS 8-15
The aim of the lesson is to teach you to analyse the relationship between the characters and to explain the
psychological value of separate episodes.
1. Reproduce the information and add just a few more sentences stating the importance of some other
episode and explaining your viewpoint.
Huck would be incomplete without Jim, who is almost as notable a creation as Huck himself. Huck is
the passive observer of men and events, Jim is the submissive sufferer from them; and both are equal in
dignity. There is no passage in which their relationship is brought out more clearly than the conclusion of
the chapter in which, after the two have become separated in the fog, Huck behaves with boyish mischief.
The pathos and dignity of Jim is moving and obvious. Less obvious is the dignity and pathos of the boy who
understands that he must bear the responsibility of a man.
Almost just as important is the episode in which…
2. Prove that you remember the details by pointing out the correct answer. Prepare the multiple
choices (like in task 4 in the previous plan) and give them to your partner to answer on the spot.
3. Give a summary of chapters 8 - 15 by filling in the gaps:
Once on Jackson Island, Huck feels happy and free. His sense of safety, however, is shattered
when…………………….....................................................................................................................................
Fortunately, he soon finds out
that………………………………………………………………………………
Escaping from pursuit down the river, Huck and Jim come across a wrecked steamboat which is about to
sink……………………………………………………………………………………………………………...
Having safely drifted away, they find their raft a few miles down the river, and Huck sends a rescue party to
the steamboat. Looking through the things the gang stole off the wreck, they discover among them, and
spend their time
discussing.............................................................................................................................................
As the journey goes on, they lose each other in dense fog, and when Huck catches up with the raft
again…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
4. Read Robert Bridges’ perspective of ‘Huckleberry Finn’ and add some more story scenes (3-4)
which render the author’s refined sense of humor, sense of proportion between the comic and the
dramatic:
Mark Twain is a humorist or nothing. He is well aware of this fact himself, for he prefaces The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with a brief notice, warning persons in search of a moral, a motive or
plot that they are liable to be persecuted, banished or shot. This is a nice little artifice to scare the critics
– a king of ‘tresspassers on these grounds will be dealt with according to law.” However, as there is no
penalty attached, we organized a search expedition for the humorous qualities of this book with the
following hilarious results:
A very refined and delicate piece of narration by Huck Finn, describing his venerable and dilapidated
“pap” as afflicted with delirium tremens, rolling over and over, “kicking things every which way,” and
“saying there was devils ahold of him.” This chapter is especially suited to amuse the children on long
rainy afternoon.
5. Ignorance and error are made more real than truth in the book, because they are shared by Huck and Jim,
and they provide a tight frame of pathos and drama in their story.
Explain and illustrate by examples.
Show that Huck and Jim, for all the differences of outlook imposed by their race, share the views
and superstitions of practically the whole people placed in time and space.
You may use the details from the previous chapters, too, alongside with the chapters under
discussion.
6. Read the following guidelines to a literary analysis and say: How can the very last episode in
chapter 15 be classified? Explain.
In any novel, the reader may find some plot-incidents, which push the story forward (=on which the further
development of the plot depends greatly), and character-incidents, which do not influence the development
of the plot but show a character in development, are important psychologically (="add tissue to character").
7. Is this reaction true to your vision of the book?
“Seize me and hold me with a grip of steel. Make me deaf to all the world so long as I read in thine
enchanted pages. Carry me with thou wilt. Play on me... Make me shriek with pain... fill my eyes with tears
and my heart with sorrow... “
