Novel Study Guide

Title
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Author
Mark Twain

Plot Summary
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the story of a free-thinking street kid, Huck
Finn, and a slave named Jim, both of whom choose to flee their oppressive lives.
The two set out on a trip down the Mississippi River that is filled with adventures
and experiences unique to the particular class of characters and setting during the
mid-nineteenth century.

Setting
Mississippi River and its surrounding communities, 1840s

Major Characters
• Huckleberry Finn, the main character and narrator of the story
• Jim, a runaway slave belonging to Miss Watson
• Tom Sawyer, Huck’s friend
• Widow Douglas, a widow who had taken Huck in and tried to “civilize” him
• Miss Watson, the sister of the Widow Douglas, who wants to sell Jim south
• Judge Thatcher, a respected citizen of St. Petersburg who protects Huck’s
fortune
• Pap, Huck’s father, who is an abusive drunk
• The Duke of Bridgewater, a young con man who invents the Royal Nonesuch
• The King of France, an elder con man who forces himself upon the raft and
sells Jim
• The Grangerford Family, comprising Bob, Buck, Charlotte, Colonel, Emmeline,
Sophia, and Tom. They are involved in a long-standing feud with the
Shepherdsons; they also treat Huck like a son.
• The Shepherdson Family, comprising the Colonel, Harney, and others who
feud with the Grangerfords.
• The Wilks Family, who recently lost their patriarch and whom the duke and
king try to fool by posing as their heirs from England
• Silas and Sally Phelps, Tom Sawyer's aunt and uncle, victims of Huck and
Tom’s trickeries as they plot to free Jim

Chapter Review Questions

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Answering the following questions will increase your comprehension of the novel.
Respond to these questions by writing the answers in your notebook. Some of the
questions require you to express an opinion or describe your reaction to events in
the novel. In these instances, there is no right or wrong answer, and responses will
vary. The answers to factual questions are included in this study guide.

Chapters 1–6
Vocabulary: Providence, ornery, whale, ambuscade, tract, raspy, tanned, pungle,
temperance

Chapter 1
1. What is the irony in Tom’s invitation to Huck to join his band of robbers on the
condition he goes back to the widow and be respectable?
2. How do Huck’s religious practices differ from the widow’s? How are they like
Jim’s?

Chapter 2
1. How does Twain build suspense in the beginning of Chapter 2?
2. What does this sentence mean and what event might it foreshadow? Jim was
most ruined, for a servant, because he got so stuck up on account of having
seen the devil and been rode by witches.
3. How does Tom let his breeding show, even while he is plotting kidnapping and
murders?

Chapter 3
1. What does Huck mean at the end of the chapter when he compares Tom’s lies
to Sunday school?

Chapter 4
1. Find two examples of Huck’s superstitious beliefs.
2. Why do you think Huck wants to get rid of his money? What does Judge
Thatcher do to protect Huck’s money?

Chapter 5
1. What could be the irony or real reason behind Huck’s father’s accusations
toward his son?

Chapter 6
1. Why do you think Twain included the “mulatter” (bi-racial) character in this
chapter?
2. How does Twain create suspense at the end of Chapter 6?

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Chapters 7–11
Vocabulary: palaver, quicksilver, clip, truck, injun, traps, reticule, hump

Chapter 7
1. Describe Huck’s thoughtful process of escaping the shanty.
2. Do you think his staged murder will be believable?
3. How does the author create a vivid atmosphere?
4. What are some examples of how Huck has basic survival skills most young boys
(or even men) in this country these days would not have?

Chapter 8
1. How does Huck’s feeling of contentment change from the morning to the
evening?
2. Which literary device can be found twice in this sentence? “I see the moon go
off watch and the darkness begin to blanket the river.”
3. Describe in your own words how Jim escaped.
4. How does Jim consider himself rich now?

Chapter 9
1. What is strange about the man on the floating house? What do you think
happened in the house earlier?

Chapter 10
1. Why do Huck and Jim think that touching a snakeskin with your hands has
caused their bad luck?
2. Why does Huck dress up like a girl?

Chapter 11
1. What’s the main reason people think Huck’s father killed him?
2. What makes Huck so uneasy while at Mrs. Loftus’s house?

Chapters 12–16
Vocabulary: derrick, halter, toe-head, staving

Chapter 12
1. According to Huck, what are the two meanings of “borrowing”? How do he and
Jim reconcile the two together to feel OK about taking things?
2. How does Huck foolishly do what he thinks Tom Sawyer would do in Chapter 12?

Chapter 13
1. What do you think Twain’s purpose was for having Huck go through the trouble
of trying to save the gang of murderers aboard the sinking wreck?

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Chapter 14
1. Why do you think Jim says he doesn’t want any more adventures? How is Jim’s
situation very different from Huck’s?
2. Why does Jim think Solomon’s life wasn’t so great nor was he wise?
3. Why do you think Jim knows so much about Solomon and other biblical stories?
4. What is the irony in Huck’s statement at the end of the chapter “I see it
warn’t no use wasting words—you can’t learn a nigger to argue. So I quit.”?

Chapter 15
1. What is Huck and Jim’s plan to get out of trouble in general? Does it sound like
a good plan to you? Why or why not?
2. What lesson does Huck learn at the end of Chapter 15?

Chapter 16
1. Why does Huck’s conscience bother him in this chapter? How does his
bothered conscience sound strange to us in the 21st century? What makes
Huck then feel bad about deciding to turn Jim in? What finally eases his
conscience all around?
2. How does handling the snakeskin come back to haunt the pair again?

Chapters 17–19
Vocabulary: frowsy, junket, pommel, puncheon, galoot, scow

Chapter 17
1. How does Huck find out his false name on the night the Grangerfords found
him?
2. How can you tell that Huck is impressed with the Grangerford’s house?
3. What sort of theme runs through all of Emmeline’s art and poetry?

Chapter 18
1. Describe Colonel Grangerford in your own words.
2. What is Buck’s opinion of the Shepherdsons’ bravery?
3. What do all the Grangerfords take to church with them?
4. What is the catalyst for the current battle between the two families?
5. What is Huck’s opinion of life on a raft?

Chapter 19
1. What got the temperance revivalist in trouble?
2. Why does Huck go along with the duke and king’s lies?

Chapters 20–23

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Vocabulary: hub, contrite, pluck

Chapter 20
1. Judging from the context of the chapter, what do you think a “one-horse town”
is?
2. What false identity yielded the king $87.75?
3. How did the duke find a way to run the raft in the daytime?

Chapter 21
1. Think about the way Huck describes the setting in Chapter 21. In what way
does Twain appeal to all the senses in his description of the town?
2. Why does Boggs come to town?
3. What prevents Huck from being confronted by Boggs?

Chapter 22
1. What might have run through Huck’s mind (that he doesn’t tell the reader)
when he sees Boggs carry on and then get shot?
2. How does Colonel Sherburn convince the crowd not to lynch him?
3. What ploy did the duke use to bring in crowds for his “The Royal Nonesuch”
show? How is the title ironic?

Chapter 23
1. How do the men prove themselves to be regular rapscallions in this chapter?
2. What is wrong with Huck’s description of Henry the 8th?
3. Why doesn’t Huck tell Jim they aren’t real dukes or kings?
4. How does Twain show Jim’s humanity at the end of this chapter?

Chapters 24–27
Vocabulary: lath, yawl, doxolojer, obsequies, smouch, melodium (melodeon),
histrionic

Chapter 24
1. What makes Huck say “It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human
race”?

Chapter 25
1. What disgusts Huck at the beginning of Chapter 25?
2. What is Huck’s favorite part of church?
3. Why does the doctor think the king is an imposter?

Chapter 26
1. How does Huck feel about the orphan girls?

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2. Do you think such a heist would be possible in modern times? Why or why not?

Chapter 27
1. Where does Huck hide the money? Do you think it is strange that he doesn’t
take even a few pieces of gold?
2. How does the undertaker satisfy the funeral attendees’ curiosity and become
very “popular”?
3. Why do Huck and the girls feel terrible for their slaves?
4. How does Huck feel a little bit better about the slaves by the end of the
chapter? Do you think this was a risk he carelessly took? Why or why not?

Chapters 28–31
Vocabulary: bile, harrow, blether, fagged, cravat, gabble, doggery, tight

Chapter 28
1. Describe Huck’s inner grappling with telling Mary Jane the truth.
2. Why does Huck not want to have his plan set in motion until late in the night?
3. Has Huck’s opinion of Mary Jane changed for the worse during this chapter?

Chapter 29
1. How does the lawyer, Levi Bell, try to decide which is the real brother?

Chapter 30
1. What realization of the king’s makes Huck squirm on the raft? What helps
Huck relax?

Chapter 31
1. What self-described “lowdown thing” has Huck done?
2. What does Huck do to make himself feel better about this horrible thing he
has done?
3. What finally makes Huck decide he will never reform and rip up the letter?
4. Why do you think Huck makes such a point of referring to Jim as his “nigger”
and his only “property” in the world when whining to the duke?

Chapters 32–36
Vocabulary: stile, mortification, vittles

Chapter 32
1. How are the white woman and her children the same as the slave woman and
her children? Why do you think Twain included this detail?
2. Why is Huck so relieved to find out who he is supposed to be?

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Chapter 33
1. What does Tom reveal about himself when he tells Huck he’ll help him steal
Jim?
2. How does Huck feel when he sees the king and duke tarred and feathered?

Chapter 34
1. What is the irony of Huck’s undying admiration of Tom’s stylish plans, such as
the one to steal Jim?
2. Why does Huck try to dissuade Tom from helping release Jim?

Chapter 35
1. Why might some people find Tom’s drawn-out plans to free Jim selfishly
motivated?

Chapter 36
1. How does Tom reconcile himself to Huck’s practicality?

Chapters 37–Chapter the Last

Vocabulary: addled, brickbat, jews-harp, desperadoes, yarn

Chapter 37
1. How do Tom and Huck make up for allowing Uncle Silas to take all the blame for
the missing objects?
2. Does Jim go along with Tom and Huck’s elaborate prison games? Why do you
think he does or does not?

Chapter 38
1. What is ironic about Jim helping the boys move the grindstone?
2. What might the rattlesnake and rats that Tom wants to drop in Jim’s cell
symbolize?

Chapter 39
1. Which characters are likely to be sorry Tom and Huck ever came to the
Phelps’s?

Chapter 40
1. How does Twain add comic relief to the tense scene in the house with all the
armed men?
2. What hitch in the whole escape tipped the men off and made them shoot?
What slows down an almost perfect escape?

Chapter 41

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1. How are Huck and Tom’s shenanigans bad for the other slaves?

Chapter 42
1. What selfless act does Jim commit on the island?
2. What is the doctor’s opinion of Jim?
3. What shocking news does Tom reveal after he delightfully recounts how he and
Huck were responsible for all the trouble?

Chapter the Last

1. What shocking news does Jim reveal to Huck? What is Huck’s reaction?

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Answers to Chapter Review Questions

Chapter 1 Answers
1. Possible response: Living in a respectable home is contrary to the nature of
being part of a band of robbers.
2. Huck sees no point in striving to go to heaven like the widow does; he is
superstitious like Jim.

Chapter 2 Answers
1. Responses will vary.
2. Possible response: Jim became so popular among the slaves because of his
supposedly supernatural experience that he thought very highly of himself—too
good for regular slave work. Perhaps it foreshadows a future for Jim either
not as a slave or a future continuing as a slave, kept down by his own
superstitions.
3. He constantly refers to books instead of real life experience.

Chapter 3 Answers
1. Possible response: Huck might feel that Sunday school spreads lies and elements
of the imagination just as Tom enjoys living out his fantasies. Huck is a reality-
based individual who has been so busy trying to survive that he has not had the
privilege of letting boyish imaginations or faith win him over.

Chapter 4 Answers
1. Possible response: His desire to throw salt over his shoulder at the dinner
table; his consultation of Jim with the hairball.
2. Possible response: Huck fears his father has come to town to take his money;
the judge “buys” it from Huck so that he can “sell” it back to him at a later
date, knowing that Huck shouldn’t really want to give it away.

Chapter 5 Answers
1. Possible response: He wishes he had had the opportunities Huck is having; Huck
is not showing off like his father is accusing him of doing.

Chapter 6 Answers
1. Responses will vary.
2. Responses will vary.

Chapter 7 Answers
1. Responses will vary.
2. Responses will vary.

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3. Possible responses: fishing, estimating distances, hunting, how to hide and steer
a canoe, judging time and seasons by sun and moonlight

Chapter 8 Answers
1. He starts off happy and feeling free. Then he gets lonesome. Then he is scared
by nighttime.
2. personification
3. Responses will vary.
4. He owns himself; he is worth $800.

Chapter 9 Answers
1. He is dead; responses will vary.

Chapter 10 Answers
1. It was Jim’s superstition—and Huck believes it, too—when his trick goes wrong
and Jim gets bitten by the dead snake’s mate and stays drunk for several days
to recover.
2. so he can go to town incognito to see what’s going on

Chapter 11 Answers
1. to get the money
2. She says her husband is going to the island to look for Jim because she had
seen smoke there and there is a reward. Also, Huck forgot the name he
told her and she was suspicious.

Chapter 12 Answers
1. One meaning of the word borrowing is that it is okay to borrow something if
you intend to return it one day (his dad’s definition); the other meaning of
borrowing is that it is a soft term for stealing (widow’s definition). They agree
not to “borrow” crabapples or persimmons.
2. He boards the sinking riverboat and snoops around for a hint of an adventure.

Chapter 13 Answers
1. Possible response: to create drama and show Huck having an adventure; to show
Huck’s desire to help all people no matter what their background

Chapter 14 Answers
1. Possible response: If Jim gets caught he will be sold south and likely beaten
pretty hard. If Huck gets caught, he will just be sent home.
2. He had so many wives that there must have been a lot of noise from all the
children; he thought it would be a good idea to chop his child in two, when half a
child is no better than half a dollar bill.

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3. Possible response: Historically, slaves were taught Bible stories and
encouraged/forced to accept Christianity.
4. Jim argues very well and, using his own logic and limited knowledge of the
outside world, makes perfect sense in thinking a Frenchman should speak like
any other man. While his logic is incorrect, it still makes a good argument.

Chapter 15 Answers
1. Sell the raft in Cairo and ride a steamboat up the Ohio River to the free
states. Responses will vary.
2. He learns that it’s mean to play tricks on Jim and is ashamed of making him feel
bad.

Chapter 16 Answers
1. Huck is helping a slave escape to freedom. Possible response: We would think a
person’s conscience would be bothered to own a slave or turn one in, and that
helping one escape would make a conscience feel good, not bad. Jim thanks him
for being such a good friend. He decides he wasn’t raised to do “right” so he
won’t worry about his conscience, and in the future he’ll do whatever is
“handiest” instead.
2. Huck believes it caused the bad luck of losing the canoe and having their raft
run over by a steamboat.

Chapter 17 Answers
1. He challenges Buck to spell it.
2. He says he is impressed and gives a very detailed description of everything in
it.
3. sad, depressing ideas

Chapter 18 Answers
1. Responses will vary.
2. He thinks they are as brave as his own family.
3. their guns
4. Sophia ran off with Harney Shepherdson.
5. He prefers it to other places he has lived.

Chapter 19 Answers
1. People found out he was a drinker himself.
2. Life is easier when you don’t have quarrels, especially on a raft.

Chapter 20 Answers
1. Responses will vary.
2. a reformed pirate

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3. He printed pretend reward handbills for Jim, and they would tie Jim to the
raft if questioned, saying they were on their way to claiming their reward.

Chapter 21 Answers
1. Responses will vary.
2. to kill Colonel Sherburn
3. Colonel Sherburn calls Boggs’ name and shoots him.

Chapter 22 Answers
1. Possible response: Perhaps he is reminded of his own father and wonders if
something like that could happen to him.
2. He tells them they’re too cowardly and don’t really want to do it; he exposes
and ridicules the concept of mob mentality.
3. He printed “Ladies and Children Not Admitted” on the handbill. Audiences
received exactly nothing for their admission fee.

Chapter 23 Answers
1. They falsely sell a show that they don’t deliver two nights in a row and then
take off with the money the third night before the crowd has the chance to
throw rotten eggs and cabbage at them.
2. everything
3. He figured that they’re not much different from real ones.
4. He shows him mourning his separation from his family and feeling guilt over the
time he smacked his daughter for not obeying, when she was actually deaf from
scarlet fever.

Chapter 24 Answers
1. The king dramatically impersonated a dead man’s brother in order to claim the
deceased man’s treasure.

Chapter 25 Answers
1. all the sobbing and the speech the king gives
2. when it lets out
3. He doesn’t have a good English accent, and his Greek and Hebrew are incorrect.

Chapter 26 Answers
1. He feels terrible that they’re being lied to and cheated out of such a great sum
of money; he thinks they’re very sweet and kind and beautiful.
2. Responses will vary.

Chapter 27 Answers

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1. Huck hides the money in the coffin. Possible response: Huck has a unique and
quite high sense of morality, so it is believable that he would not take any of
the money. He is also superstitious, and feels for the orphaned girls, so
perhaps he feels it is best to leave well enough alone. He is also so busy
thinking about each step in the process that it is possible Huck—or Twain—
might have missed the opportunity.
2. He lets them know the dog was howling because he had a rat.
3. The family is broken up when they’re sold to different owners.
4. He was able to put the blame on them for stealing the money, but they’re being
sold and leaving town, so the king has to let the matter go; responses will vary.

Chapter 28 Answers
1. Responses will vary.
2. So that he and Jim won’t have to be on the raft in the daylight.
3. If anything, it has improved; he sounds quite smitten with her.

Chapter 29 Answers
1. He has the king write a line to show it doesn’t match the letters the real
brother wrote.

Chapter 30 Answers
1. The king is thinking about how the gold ended up in the casket. When the king
blames the duke for stealing the gold, they get into a fight, and then the king
confesses that he stole it.

Chapter 31 Answers
1. helped Jim escape
2. writes a confessional letter to Miss Watson
3. He thinks about how good Jim has been to him.
4. Possible response: To make it more believable that he really does “belong” to
him.

Chapter 32 Answers
1. The same relationship exists between mother and children regardless of race
or class; perhaps Twain includes this detail to illustrate the universality of
human behavior.
2. Because it’s Tom Sawyer, someone he knows very well.

Chapter 33 Answers
1. He shows a shockingly “bad” side; Huck’s opinion of him supposedly falls.
2. He feels bad for them.

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Chapter 34 Answers
1. Huck’s is practical and has a much better chance of working.
2. Tom is from a decent family and cannot claim he doesn’t know any better like
Huck can. Huck considers Tom’s decision to be very risky, given his social status.

Chapter 35 Answers
1. Responses will vary. Tom is not concerned with the welfare of Jim as witnessed
by the antics he puts everyone, including Jim, through in order to free him. If
Jim’s freedom were of primary concern, he would have let him out immediately.
Instead, he revels in the plans as though he were playing a game, not engaged in
helping decide the fate of a man.

Chapter 36 Answers
1. He pretends he’s doing things the hard, regulation way. But in reality, he takes
the easier, more sensible approach.

Chapter 37 Answers
1. They stop up the rat holes for him in the basement.
2. Possible response: Yes, he does, most likely not because he believes they are
necessary but because he is accustomed to agreeing with people who hold
power over him, especially if they have the power ultimately to help him.

Chapter 38 Answers
1. In doing so, he left the prison and could have completed his escape.
2. Possible response: Tom ignorantly thinks wild animals want to be tamed and are
all happy to be pets, just as he likely thinks Africans don’t mind being slaves. He
has no regard for the comfort of animals or other humans when it comes to
living out his fantasies.

Chapter 39 Answers
1. Aunt Sally, Uncle Silas, Jim

Chapter 40 Answers
1. He has the stolen butter drip down on Huck’s head; Aunt Sally thinks it’s his
brains leaking out.
2. Tom’s britches getting caught on the fence; Jim’s insistence that they get a
doctor for Tom’s gunshot wound.

Chapter 41 Answers
1. They get blamed for helping Jim and stealing the items from the house.

Chapter 42 Answers

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1. He shows himself in order to get the doctor to help Tom.
2. He thinks very highly of him and says he is worth a thousand dollars.
3. that Jim has been free for months, anyway

Chapter The Last Answers

1. That his father was the dead drunk they saw on the house-raft early in the
adventure; none.

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