Transcript The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Objectives

Reading Responses to Activity Questions

Journal Entries

Literature Groups and reflection

Objective Test – matching, multiple choice, etc.

Newspaper of the Times – including this novel and Unit 4
(add Willa Cather and Kate Chopin)
FOLLOW THE READING SCHEDULE POSTED ON THE EDMODO
CALENDAR!!!!!
Learning Goals

Who is Twain? (humor)

The “N” word and banned books (controversy) – should
books be banned? Why do some students find it
offensive? Why do some not?

Stereotypes and characterization – Is Jim a stereotype?

The Mississippi River – What does it symbolize?

Conflict (relationships), Satire and Irony – Identify and
analyze; at what point does Huck experience a moral
conflict?
His humor
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative
will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a
moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to
find a plot in it will be shot.”
We’ll discuss why this is ironic after we read.
http://californiastreaming.org/player.asp?playlistID=37728&segmentID=135222
The “N” word and banned books (controversy)

What happened in 1885, 1905 and 1998?

What does Gribben plan to do?

Vocabulary:

Bowdlerise: to amend by removing or modifying passages
considered to be vulgar or objectionable

Pejorative: having a disparaging, derogatory, or belittling effect or
force

Epithet: a word, phrase or expression used invectively as a term of
abuse or contempt, to express hostility

Watch the video segment from Culture Shock’s Born to Trouble:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Read the handout

Reflect in your journal
Point of view

Firstperson

Unreliable
narrator
Homework

Read Chapters 1-5
 Reading Strategies
 Vocabulary and images are on wiki
 Spark Notes has a no fear modern text
adaptation, but I’m not too fond of it –
may help while reading Jim’s dialogue
 Answer Questions #1 and 2 on
worksheet
Discuss the Conflicts
(external or internal)

Huck vs Miss Watson and the
Widow

Huck vs. Pap

Pap vs. the Widow Douglas

Jim vs. Miss Watson
Pap
What is ironic
about their
relationship?
Classwork/Homework

Let’s continue reading and answering questions.

Make sure you have read and answered questions up
to Chapter 15 by Thursday.

Focus:
 Relationships
 Nature
 Mississippi River Valley
Journal Entry #12?
Analyzing Relationships
Huck and Jim
Discussion

Analyzing Literature Chapters 1-15 Recall and
Interpret

Literature Groups – with a partner (share your
responses on the board)

Look at your map – track Huck and Jim’s
Journey

Finish Conflict sheet
Huck and Finn’s
Journey
Before You Read
How do you go
about making
important
decisions? Do you
tend to follow
your heart or your
head?
Satire and Irony

A kind of literature that tries to open people’s
eyes to the need for change by exposing the
flaws of a person or society. Satirists; main
weapon is humor, which is created through
techniques such as irony.

As you read Chapters 16-31, look for examples
of irony, and think about the flaws that
Twain is attempting to expose.
Journal Entry #13
Isn’t it Ironic – Brainstorm
the irony in Huck’s
situation. What evil does
the irony expose?
Huck and Jim’s Journey
Review Chapters 16-31

Personal Response

Analyzing Literature

Focus Activity was the question about how you make
important decisions. Do you follow your heart or your
head?

Literature Groups – life on the raft versus life on shore

Learning for Life – create a quick improvised scene

Active Reading as review in pairs
Active Reading
Appearance
1.
Huck pretends to be George
Jackson
2.
Grangerford’s slave tells Huck
to get mocassins
3.
Duke and King (reformed
pirate and Wilke’s brothers)
4.
Jim is a sick Arab
5.
The town pretends to be
lynchers
6.
Huck pretends to be Jim’s
owner
Reality
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Active Reading
Appearance
Reality
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Focus Activity for
Chapters 32-43

In many popular adventure stories, the hero is held
captive by evil enemies or forces yet manages to escape.

Which books and movies in which a hero overcomes
seemingly impossible odds to find freedom exist?





Who or what holds the hero captive?
What miseries does the hero endure while being held?
How does the hero escape?
Do friends help?
READ TO FIND OUT HOW HUCK AND A FRIEND
PLAN TO ESCAPE
The Antihero

Very human

Has faults

Makes mistakes

Puzzles over difficult decisions

However, they “do the right thing”

As you read the final chapters, think about the
heroes of the novel; are they traditional heroes
or antiheroes? Why?
The Controversial
Conclusion

Some critics feel it is logical and effective.

Some severely criticized it.

Judge the conclusion for yourself.

Is it consistent with the characters we have come to know?

Does it resolve the major conflicts in the novel in a
satisfactory way?
Structure

Journey allows Huck and Jim to meet many
different kinds of people.

Small towns and villages along great river mirror
American society as a whole.

Encountered liars, cheaters, and hypocrites

Twain’s bitterness was rooted in the knowledge
that he himself grew up thinking there was nothing
wrong with a system that enslaved human beings.
Chapter 32

What happens to Huck when he arrives at the Phelps
plantation?

Who does Aunt Sally introduce Huck as?

Who does Huck meet up with and what does he tell him?
Chapter 33

Who does Tom pretend to be?

What does he do to Aunt Sally?

Who does he say he is this time?

What news do they hear and what do they plan to
do about it?

Why do you think Huck makes up the fact that the
cylinder-head of the boat “Killed a nigger”?

Why do you think Huck can’t believe that Tom
would be a “nigger stealer!”?
Journal entry

“You Have Mail”

Who are the flat characters?

Who are the round characters?

With a partner next to you compare and contrast Tom and
Huck. Provide at least one quote for each character that
supports your evaluations.
Review

Personal Response

Analyzing Literature

Evaluate and connect
Lit terms to review

Point of view/unreliable narrator

External conflict/internal conflict

Satire

Irony

symbolism
Major Characters




Huckleberry Finn: a young boy with no real
guiding hand and very little education
Jim: a runaway slave who belonged to Miss
Watson
Tom Sawyer: a companion of Huck’s who
loves adventure
Pap Finn: Huck’s biological father; a “nogood” drunk
Minor/supporting
characters







Widow Douglas and Miss Watson: Huck’s guardians who try to
“sivilize” him
King and Duke: Two con men that Huck and Jim meet on the
Mississippi River
The Grangerfords: A wealthy family that Huck stays with for a while
The Shepherdsons: Another wealthy family; in a fued with the
Grangerfords
The Wilkes sisters: Victims of a scam cooked up by the King and the
Duke
Townspeople: representative of group mentality
The Mississippi River: representative of peace and
tranquility; freedom from society
Plot sequence
1.
2.
We meet Huck (St. Petersburg) and he presents his
struggle with society (Ch 1)
Huck joins Tom’s “gang of robbers” and we meet
Jim. (Ch 2)
3.
Jim presents a prophesy for Huck (Ch 4)
4.
We meet Pap and Pap turns over a new leaf (Ch 5)
5.
Pap takes Huck to live in an isolated cabin and sees
the Angel of Death (foreshadowing) (Ch 6)
Cont.
6. Huck and Jim meet on Jackson’s Island (p. 39)
7. “Jim and Huck see the dead man on the houseboat” (Chapter 9)
8. Huck plays tricks on Jim (p. 52-53); (Chapter 16)
9. Huck saves Jim from being arrested for Huck’s murder (p. 54-62)
10. Huck’s conscious gets to him (Chap 16)
11. Jim proves his wisdom by questioning accepted ideas (Chapter
14)
12. Adventures with the Grangerfords (Ch 18 & 19)
Cont.
13. The King and the Duke come aboard the raft (Ch 19)
14. The King and Huck go to the Camp meeting
(p. 130-132)
15. Jim gets homesick (p. 155-56)
16. Huck writes a letter to Miss Watson to turn Jim in
(Ch 31)
17. Huck arrives at the Phelps plantation and pretends to
be Tom; Ton pretends to be Sid Sawyer; the King and
Duke get tarred and feathered.
Cont.
18. Tom and Huck decide to free Jim, but Huck’s plan is
too simple for Tom; Tom’s and Huck’s characters are
juxtaposed (romantic vs. realistic)
19. Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas begin to wonder about the
missing items and Tom writes an anonymous letter.
20. Tom, Jim and Huck escape, Tom gets shot and they
find a doctor for Tom.
21. Tom is brought home, he reveals Jim’s freedom, Jim
is released and reveals that Pap’s dead body was the
dead body on the floating house.
Background
The story takes place during the early 1860s in a small mining
town called Angel’s Camp in Calaveras County, CA.
1800s
Life was hard and entertainment was scarce in the remote
mining camps and frontier towns.
To create some fun and laughter, people invented their own tall
tales.
Tall Tale

A funny, imaginative story about unbelievable situations.

The characters –people or animals- seem larger than life.

Storytellers use exaggeration in tall tales to make readers
laugh.
Purpose

Read how Simon Wheeler stretches the truth when he talks
about an amazing gambler named Jim Smiley.
Vocabulary

Garrulous – talkative

Conjecture – guess

Reminiscence – an account of a past experience or event

Dilapidated – fallen into ruin; shabby

Interminable – seemingly endless

Vagabond – someone who wanders from place to place
Guide for Understanding
p. 529

Reader’s Response

Check your comprehension

Critical Thinking


2
3
Journal

What is your favorite kind of music?

How do you feel when you listen to it?

Imagine that you moved to a place where you couldn’t listen
to music for a long time-maybe for years.

Write some thoughts about your favorite music and how
you would miss it.
Purpose

Read about a woman who hears a performance of her
favorite kind of music.
Nebraska
Exposition Questions

Who wrote the letter to the narrator?

Who is coming to visit?

When is the visitor coming?

What is the narrator asked to do?

How did Georgiana and Howard measure the land?

What did they build?

Where did they get their water?
“A Wagner Matinee”
Review

Who is the author?

What are the settings? (time and place)

Summarize the story - try to write the main idea of the story
in one sentence (PRACTICE)
Review
The story explores the conflict between a woman’s love for
music and the withering effects of the rude farming life in
the pioneer West that leaves neither time nor energy for the
pursuit of fine arts.
Connection to Willa’s life
Some Nebraskans felt offended because her depiction was
unfair to the state and her family was disappointed because
he uncle and his wife were obviously the models for the
fictional Uncle Howard and Aunt Georgiana.
Her response
She said that it was a tribute to the brave women who endured
the desolation and loneliness of life on the frontier.
U.S. History connection
In 1862, Congress passed the Homestead Act to advance
settlement of the prairie lands of the West. The Act offered
160 acres of free land to anyone over 21 years of age who
was a citizen or who had declared intention to become one.
Reader’s Response

Did you feel sorry for Aunt Georgiana? Why or Why not?

Do you think she made the right choice?
Living in a Changing World

Who is Kate Chopin?

P. 590

“She examined the nature of marriage, racial prejudice, and
women’s desire for social, economic and political equality”
Purpose for reading

“The Story of an Hour” p. 592

Why do you think this short story was considered
scandalous at the turn of the twentieth century?

Think about the role women have played then and
now: What benefits does marriage offer?; How do the
demands of marriage conflict with each spouse’s needs
as an individual?
Read the short story

Read it once for an overall understanding.

Read it twice noticing the annotations given.
In groups we will look at

Imagery

Structure

Diction and word connotation

Irony

Conflict

Tone and attitude
Sample Inquiry
Whether you are asked to discuss Louise Mallard’s shift in attitude
toward the death of her husband, or the author’s attitude toward
the repressed situation of women shortly after the turn of the
twentieth century, you will be ready.
Imagery

Mallard is a reference to the male of that species,
being Mrs. Mallard suggests the second-class nature
of the wife’s position.

Louise goes to her room and sits by an open
window-(not closed, barred, or heavily curtained).

Several times story mentions rain is cleansing, is
beginning of a new life - gives Louise a recognition
of future possibilities.

Blue sky might represent glimmers of hope and
freedom or life before marriage.
Structure

Paragraphs are extremely short, almost journalistic in nature.

Sensual and emotional impressions.

Another feature is how quickly the action begins and how abruptly
it concludes.
Diction Connotation

Line 11: Louise “wept at once…with wild
abandonment”

Line 12: “storm of grief”


Similar to the storm that had so recently brought the
cleansing rains that washed the air and the streets
outside her window
Line 20: “countless sparrows were twittering in the
eaves”

Line 20: Someone outside her window is “singing”

These words suggest that life outside is liberated,
happy, and something to look forward to.
Diction and connotation

Despite her “powerless” (line 37) struggle against

the “something” (line 31) that is dawning upon her,
she murmurs the words

“free, free, free!” (line 40).

A “monstrous joy” (line 44) and arriving at an
“exalted perception” (line 45) and

experiencing a “moment of illumination” (line 56).
More Diction and
Connotation

Now she can “live for herself” (52)

without any “bending” (line 52) to her husband’s
“private will” (line 54).

Louise repeats again “Free! Body and soul free!”
(line 61)

“belong to her absolutely” (line 49)

Line 73:“in feverish triumph [like] the goddess of Victory”

Line 82: the words in the last lines are so well chosen – The
doctor’s declare that Louise Mallard has died of “heart disease”,
her demise was a result of “joy that kills”
Irony

We know from the onset that Mrs. Mallard suffers from a
weak heart

It is unlikely that the “joy” is what killed her, but rather the
abruptness of its unexpected extinction
Conflict

Louise is in conflict with the emotions evoked by her husband’s
sudden death

In her “storm of grief” she wishes to be alone

As she settles into the peacefulness of her room, we see Louise at
odds with her own burgeoning emotions

She sees herself not as a bereft widow, but as a liberated, freewilled female

She opens the door and enters into a new world

Conflict rears its ugly head once again when her husband (not
dead at all) enters the house

This last conflict is what weakens undoes her “weak
heart”
Tone and Attitude

evolve from such things as images, diction, conflict, syntax,
as well as ironic finale of this particular story