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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn : Chapter notes. Chapter 21: Huck Finn. The Duke’s Shakespearean soliloquy is a piece of comedy in its own right. As fake as it is, Huck is impressed. David Garrick and Edmund Kean were real people, the most famous Shakespearean actors of the 19 th century.
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Chapter 21: Huck Finn • The Duke’s Shakespearean soliloquy is a piece of comedy in its own right. As fake as it is, Huck is impressed. • David Garrick and Edmund Kean were real people, the most famous Shakespearean actors of the 19th century. • In town, Huck finds himself in surroundings that are directly opposite the ones he just left with the Grangerfords – yet no more admirable.
Chapter 21: Huck Finn • Huck witnesses the cold-blooded shooting of a tough-talking drunk who insults a well-dressed man named Colonel Sherburn, who shows a little patience by giving the man a warning but then kills him when the warning is ignored. • The townsfolks’ reaction? To fight over “front-row seats” to see the dead body, and to revel in a reenactment of the shooting. • Only then to they decide to lynch Sherburn.
Chapter 22: Huck Finn • “The average man’s a coward…The average man don’t like trouble and danger.” • This is Sherburn, who has just shot and killed a man in cold blood and is contemptuous of the crowd that has come to lynch him. • It is a mob comprised of average men who lack the courage to face a single true man in daylight. • Without masks or the cover of darkness, they are cowards.
Chapter 22: Huck Finn • The speech reflects Twain’s own attitude toward people in general. • The human race is, for the most part, made up of fools and knaves. • Note Sherburn refers to the average man; he (and Twain) imply the existence of true men who can rise above the average. • We can see Jim as a true man of natural nobility; Huck himself is growing into such a man.
Chapters 22-23: Huck Finn • Twain was a humorist – but sometimes the humor vanished, and the result were ugly, bitter comments about the human race, such as Sherburn’s speech. • Huck shows he is still a simple kid when he is taken in by the circus master’s ruse. • Jim’s pining for his family, and Huck seems surprised, which indicates he still doesn’t think of Jim as quite human, even if he is friends with Jim. • Jim’s account of his actions toward his deaf daughter shows us how human Jim really is.
Chapter 23: Huck Finn • “…All kings is mostly rapscallions, as fur as I can make out…” (Jim) • Huck reflects Twain’s own contempt for European aristocracy when he says, “They don’t do nothing…They just set around – except maybe when there’s a war; then they go to war. But other times they just lazy around.”
Chapter 23: Huck Finn • Jim calls the king and duke rapscallions because of their blatant dishonesty. • But rapscallions are rogues rather than villains: Their rascality may range from mere mischief to trickery, fraud, and theft but never to crimes of complete moral depravity such as murder or rape.
Chapter 23: Huck Finn • “…I do believe [Jim] cared as much for his people as white folks does for their’n. It don’t seem natural, but I reckon it’s so.” • In the slave-holding society of Huck’s time, African Americans are regarded as cattle, incapable of experiencing any of the deeper of finer human feelings. • Therefore, their God-ordained role is that of insensible beasts of burden.
Chapter 23: Huck Finn • Huck does not consciously question the values of his society. • Thus, he initially has difficulty accepting Jim’s humanity: The concept that a black man has the same capacity to love his family as white people does run contrary to everything Huck has been taught.
Chapter 23: Huck Finn • It is Huck’s loving heart that allows him to rise above the conditioning of his society and recognize Jim as a fellow human being with a soul. • Although Huck never questions the rightness of slavery, his acceptance of Jim’s humanity unconsciously denies any moral justification for slavery.
Chapter 24: Huck Finn • The plan to have Jim get in costume on the raft is a plot device that allows Huck and the con men to stay in town for several days. • The town’s reaction to the con men’s story about being the deceased man’s relatives made Huck say to himself, “It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.”
Chapter 25: Huck Finn • Why does Huck go along with this shameful behavior? Jim, whom Huck knows is in a dangerous situation with these ruthless characters. • Twain expresses disgust with more than the con men – he also is disgusted with the narrow vision of the townspeople. It all adds up to an indictment of all of us.
Chapter 25: Huck Finn • Imposter: one who practices deceit or fraud by pretending to be someone he is not. • The King is a double impostor: He is not really a king and is now assuming the false identity of Parson Harvey Wilks so that he can steal from the deceased Peter Wilks’ estate.
Chapter 25: Huck Finn • The novel is filled with impostors, thus pointing up the hypocrisy of the society. • Even Huck becomes an impostor on several occasions, although, when he assumes a false identity, it is to either protect Jim or himself rather than commit fraud.
Chapters 26-28: Huck Finn • Chapter 27 ends with Huck expressing his pleasure that “I’d worked it all off onto the niggers, and yet hadn’t done the niggers no harm by it.” His practical approach to morality is still much in evidence, but he’s also unwilling to hurt other people when it can be avoided. • Huck is startled and puzzled by the discovery that in a tight spot it might actually be better and safer to tell the truth than lie. • He compares himself to Judas, however – in keeping with his low self-image. • Mary Jane’s willingness to pray for Huck may lead him to fall in love for the first and only time in his life.
