| What point of view is the story written in? | First person past tense |
| What’s the name of the fictional town where Huck is living at the start? What’s the REAL name of this town? | St. PetersburgHannibal, Missouri |
| How did Huck become wealthy and how much money does he have at the beginning of the book? | He and Tom found treasure in a cave. They each have $6000. |
| With whom does Huck live at the start of the book? | The Widow Douglas and her unmarried sister Miss Watson |
| Who is Jim? | Miss Watson’s slave. He runs away later in the book. |
| How does Huck feel about prayer? | He doesn’t see its usefulness. |
| What DOES Huck believe in? | Superstition |
| What kind of father was Pap Finn? | He is drunk and abusive. He disappeared for over a year, and then came back when he heard Huck had money. He is a terrible father. |
| What does Huck do with his money? Why? | He tries to GIVE it to Judge Thatcher, and then sells it to him for $1. Huck wants to get the money away from himself so his father will leave him alone. |
| What is the new judge’s decision about Huck’s custody? | It’s not right to interfere with a family, so Huck cannot be adopted away from his father by the widow or Judge Thatcher |
| Why is Pap upset with Huck when Pap first arrives? | He was angry that Huck knew how to read and write, that he was going to school and church, and that he had nice clothes and things. He thought Huck was trying to be “better” than him. |
| What happens when the new judge tries to reform Pap? | Pap sneaks out the window and sells his new coat to buy cheap booze, then gets drunk in the judge’s guest room and destroys it before falling out of the window and breaking his arm. |
| Where does Pap take Huck? | To his cabin hidden way in the woods on the Illinois side of the river. |
| How does Huck escape from his father and where does he go? | He makes an elaborate show of faking his own death and runs away to Jackson’s Island. |
| Who is on the island Huck runs away to? | Miss Watson’s runaway slave, Jim |
| Where do Huck and Jim find shelter on the island? | In a large cavern in the middle of the island |
| Where do Huck and Jim get a bunch of supplies while they’re living on the island? | Off of a house that floats by in the river |
| What does Jim see (and Huck, indirectly) in the house? | A dead man who has been shot in the back |
| Why do Huck and Jim leave the island? | Dressed as a girl, Huck sneaks back to town and finds out from a new woman that people think Jim killed Huck, and that men are going to search the island for Jim to get a reward |
| Why does their adventure nearly come to an end on a sinking steamboat? | They nearly run into two criminals on the steamboat who are about to murder a third. Then their raft comes untied and floats away, trapping them on the sinking boat. |
| How do they survive the sinking steamboat? | They take the criminals’ skiff & get away. |
| What does Huck do to try to save the criminals? | He tells a ferry captain downstream that the niece of a wealthy man is trapped on the boat so that he’ll try to save her, hoping for a reward. |
| Why doesn’t Jim think a French man should talk different than an American? | Because a man is a man. |
| What city/town are Huck and Jim trying to sail their raft to? | Cairo, Illinois |
| What do they plan to do when they reach that town? | Sell the raft, buy steamboat passage, and travel up the Ohio river into the free states |
| How do they miss the town? | They don’t know what they’re looking for and they most likely pass it in the fog one night. |
| Why does Huck apologize to Jim? | He tried to trick Jim by playing a joke on him, and Jim got offended and felt ashamed of being tricked. |
| What did Huck do on the island that they both believed brought them lots of bad luck? | He touched a rattlesnake skin |
| What bad luck do Huck and Jim believe was caused by Huck’s actions? | Jim got bit by a rattlesnake, they missed Cairo, they got separated in the fog, and their raft got hit by a steamboat and busted up |
| What lie does Huck tell to scare away the slave traders so they don’t find Jim? | He tells him his father is on the raft and is sick with smallpox. |
| When Huck and Jim get separated after the accident with the steamboat, where does Huck stay? | He stays with the Grangerfords |
| What is happening between the Grangerfords and the Sheperdsons? | They are in a feud and have been killing one another for years. |
| Why does Huck go back on the river with Jim? | He witnesses his friend Buck Grangerford get killed and the whole Grangerford family is wiped out. |
| Who are the two men Huck and Jim travel with on the raft? | They are con men. They call themselves the King and the Duke. |
| What happens at the Pokeville Camp Meeting? | The King convinces the people at the camp meeting that he’s a reformed pirate from the Indian Ocean, and they give him money so he can go reform other pirates |
| What incident happens in the town called Bricksville while they’re visiting there? | A drunken man named Boggs insults a man named Sherburn and Sherburn kills him. A mob marches off to lynch Sherburn, but he calls them cowards and they leave. |
| What’s the name of the show the King and Duke put on in Bricksville? | The Royal Nonesuch |
| What does the Duke write on the posters for their show that he knows will GUARANTEE a big crowd? Why does he believe this will work? | “Women and children not allowed”It makes it seem like the show will be inappropriate, and this is what the townspeople like. |
| How do the King and the Duke try to take advantage of the Wilks family? | They pretend to be the dead man’s brothers from England and try to claim all his money and property in the inheritance. |
| Where does Huck hide the gold that he steals from the King and the Duke at the Wilks’ home? | In the casket with the dead man |
| How are they discovered to be frauds in the Wilks’ town? | The REAL Wilks brothers show up from England |
| How does the King betray Huck and Jim? | He sells Jim for $40 using a fake reward flier that the Duke made that says Jim is a runaway slave from New Orleans |
| How does the Duke try to trick Huck? Why doesn’t it work? | He doesn’t tell Huck the true location where Jim has been sold. Huck already knew the truth from a stranger he met. |
| What decision does Huck have to make about Jim? | To turn him in and be good or to help him escape and be bad |
| What does Huck say that shows his decision? | “Alright then, I’ll go to Hell!” (He’s choosing to be “bad” and save Jim) |
| Who does the farm where Jim is being kept JUST SO HAPPEN to belong to? | Tom Sawyer’s aunt and uncle |
| Who does Huck pretend to be at the Phelps farm? | Tom Sawyer |
| Who helps Huck get Jim out? | Tom Sawyer, who claims to be Sid |
| What troubles does Tom (and Huck) make Jim go through to get free? | A FEW are: writing in blood on a shirt; carrying a heavy grindstone in from outside the shed; carving on the grindstone, having rats, spiders, and snakes for pets and playing them music, watering a flower with his tears (from an onion) |
| Who gets hurt on the night of the escape, and how? | Tom gets shot in the leg. |
| Why does Huck let Jim decide what to do after one of them gets injured? | Because it’s his freedom, and because he KNEW Jim would make the choice he did because “Jim was white on the inside” |
| What do some of the locals want to do with Jim when he’s returned to the Phelps’s? Why don’t they? | They want to lynch him. Someone points out that if his real owners show up to claim him, they’ll have to pay for him. |
| What does the doctor think of Jim, and why? | He thinks Jim is good because he came out of hiding to help care for Tom |
| When Tom recovers, what surprise does he reveal that explains WHY he was willing to help with the escape? | Jim was free all along. Miss Watson has died and freed Jim in her will. |
| Who shows up at the Phelps’s house to reveal Tom and Huck’s true identities? | Aunt Sally’s sister, Tom’s Aunt Polly. |
| What does Tom give Jim for his troubles? | $40 |
| What does Tom do with the bullet from his leg? | Wears it on a chain as a souveneir |
| What secret does Jim reveal? | The dead man in the floating house was Huck’s father, Pap. |
| What does Aunt Sally want to do at the end of the book? | Adopt Huck and civilize him |
| What does Huck say he will do? | Head out for the “Territory” (out west) |
Huck Finn Comprehension Questions
June 6, 2020