Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (2024)

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Discussion Questions -- Chapters 26-29

• The center of chapters 25-29 revolves around an elaborate lie. Describe the situation: What are the identities that the king, the duke, and Huck have adopted? How did they get the information that allowed them to carry out this con? How have they convinced the Wilks that they’re ‘authentic’?
• Even though Huck was never enthusiastic about the plan, a certain event in chapter 26 makes Huck decide to sabotage the king and the duke’s plot to steal from the girls. Why does Huck have this change of heart? What does it reveal about him as a character? (Feel free to make some speculations.)
• In chapter 28, after an accidental slip, Huck decides: “I’ll up and tell the truth this time, though it does seem most like setting down on a kag of powder and touching it off just to see where you’ll go to.” Explain this quote. What does this aside reveal about Huck’s own morality (how he views right and wrong, and their relation to truth)?
• Not only does the king and the duke’s fraud (as Harvey and William Wilks) seem to drag on for longer than it should (i.e., they should have been caught before they were), but try as he might, Huck cannot seem to rid himself of the pair (a figurative “snag” in this river journey). As a reader, how have you felt while reading this? Did you feel frustration? Why? And at which points in the story?

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Discussion Questions -- Chapters 26-29

• The center of chapters 25-29 revolves around an elaborate lie. Describe the situation: What are the identities that the king, the duke, and Huck have adopted? How did they get the information that allowed them to carry out this con? How have they convinced the Wilks that they’re ‘authentic’?
• Even though Huck was never enthusiastic about the plan, a certain event in chapter 26 makes Huck decide to sabotage the king and the duke’s plot to steal from the girls. Why does Huck have this change of heart? What does it reveal about him as a character? (Feel free to make some speculations.)
• In chapter 28, after an accidental slip, Huck decides: “I’ll up and tell the truth this time, though it does seem most like setting down on a kag of powder and touching it off just to see where you’ll go to” (149). Explain this quote. What does this aside reveal about Huck’s own morality (how he views right and wrong, and their relation to truth)?
• Not only does the king and the duke’s fraud (as Harvey and William Wilks) seem to drag on for longer than it should (i.e., they should have been caught before they were), but try as he might, Huck cannot seem to rid himself of the pair (a figurative “snag” in this river journey). As a reader, how have you felt while reading this? Did you feel frustration? Why? And at which points in the story?

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Discussion Questions -- Chapters 26-29

• The center of chapters 25-29 revolves around an elaborate lie. Describe the situation: What are the identities that the king, the duke, and Huck have adopted? How did they get the information that allowed them to carry out this con? How have they convinced the Wilks that they’re ‘authentic’?
• Even though Huck was never enthusiastic about the plan, a certain event in chapter 26 makes Huck decide to sabotage the king and the duke’s plot to steal from the girls. Why does Huck have this change of heart? What does it reveal about him as a character? (Feel free to make some speculations.)
• In chapter 28, after an accidental slip, Huck decides: “I’ll up and tell the truth this time, though it does seem most like setting down on a kag of powder and touching it off just to see where you’ll go to” (149). Explain this quote. What does this aside reveal about Huck’s own morality (how he views right and wrong, and their relation to truth)?
• Not only does the king and the duke’s fraud (as Harvey and William Wilks) seem to drag on for longer than it should (i.e., they should have been caught before they were), but try as he might, Huck cannot seem to rid himself of the pair (a figurative “snag” in this river journey). As a reader, how have you felt while reading this? Did you feel frustration? Why? And at which points in the story?