Essential and guiding questions:
- Analytical: How and why does Twain establish Huck’s voice as storyteller? What do we learn about Huck from what he reveals of other characters’ assessments of him?
- Analytical: Setting is important in establishing a novel and a narrator’s voice. Consider how elements of place are revealed in the opening chapters. How do these elements help develop the voice and characters of Huck, Tom, Jim, and others?
- Interpretive: Huck often utilizes racial epithets in the novel. Is Huck a racist character? Why or why not? Provide evidence from the text.
- Interpretive: Consider the feud involving the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons in the novel. In contrast to Jim and Huck, who might be considered part of the lower social classes, these two families hail from a higher class. What is the situational irony in their
- behavior, as well as other characters in the novel who might be considered “higher class”?
- Interpretive: Twain's novel has been identified as a "coming of age" novel. As Huck's character matures and grows up, how does his identity change? What stages or phases does he pass through on the way to his new, or more mature, identity?
- Significance: Identify a moment in the text that is significant to the development of a particular character. Cite evidence from the text to support your claim.
- Retrospective: Ernest Hemingway claimed that Huck Finn defines American literature and that all modern literature comes from Huck Finn. Do you agree or disagree? What is your rationale?
