Chapters 24 30 Vocabulary: Figures of Speech: In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Twain used many figures of speech. It is this vigorous and original idiomatic speech that makes Huckleberry Finn a genuinely American novel, rather than a plaster imitation of European literature. Many kinds of figurative language can be found in Huckleberry Finn, including metaphor, simile, hyperbole, and personification. Metaphor makes an analogy or comparison between two unlike things. For example: And when they came to look at that spare room, they had to take soundings before they could navigate it. This metaphor compares the spare room where Pap Finn stayed to a river full of snags and trash, and compares those who waded into the room to a riverboat. Simile does the same work as metaphor, but the comparison of terms is declared by words such as like or as. For example: Everybody clapped their hands and stomped on the floor like a perfect storm. Hyperbole exaggerates to emphasize or amuse. For example: And everybody crowded up with the tears in their eyes, and most shook the hands off of them frauds... Personification pictures an inanimate object as a person. For example: A towhead is a sand-bar that has cotton woods on it as thick as harrow-teeth. A tow-head is a synonym for a young child, which is then applied to a sand bar in the process of becoming an island: it is a young island. This sentence actually contains both personification and simile ( as thick as harrow-teeth ). Part 1: Identify the figure of speech in each of the following sentences. Label each sentence with an S for simile, an M for metaphor, an H for hyperbole, or a P for personification. 1996 Progeny Press 45
1. [The duke] took his theatre paint and painted Jim s face and hands and ears and neck all over a dead, dull solid blue, like a man that s been drownded nine days. 2. Well, the old man went on asking questions till he just fairly emptied that young fellow. 3. Blamed if he didn t inquire about everybody and everything in that blessed town. 4.... the king made me paddle up another mile to a lonesome place. 5. The news was all over town in two minutes, and you could see the people tearing down on the run from every which way,... 6. Pretty soon we was in the middle of a crowd, and the noise of the tramping was like a soldier march. 7.... they bust out a-crying so you could a heard them to Orleans, most;... 8. Mary Jane she sat at the head of the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits was,... and how ornery and tough the fried chicken was. 9. Everybody clapped their hands and stomped on the floor like a perfect storm. 10. The hare-lip she got to pumping me about England, and blest if I didn t think the ice was getting mighty thin sometimes. 11. Well, the king he talked him blind;... 46 1996 Progeny Press
12.... a young woman set down and worked [the melodeum], and it was pretty skreeky and colicky,... 13. I was over the shoal water now, so I went right along [telling her the truth], her eyes a-blazing higher and higher all the time. Part 2: Now look back through the reading you have done and try to find three examples of each figure of speech. Write the sentences below. Metaphor Simile Hyperbole 1996 Progeny Press 47
Personification Questions: 1. How are the king and the duke able to convince the townspeople that they are Harvey and William, Peter Wilks s brothers? 2. How does Doctor Robinson determine that the king and the duke are frauds? 3. What are two reasons Huck does not immediately reveal the king s and the duke s deception to Mary Jane or the Doctor? 4. In Chapter 26 what story does Huck tell Joanna ( the hare-lip ) about himself? (This is the sixth of Huck s personas.) 48 1996 Progeny Press
5. What is Huck s plan for turning in the king and the duke, returning Peter Wilks s money to the girls, and getting Jim and himself safely away? 6. How well does Huck s plan work? Analysis: 7. In Chapter 24 when the king and the duke are deciding on a new project for making money, Huck says,... the king he allowed he would drop over to t other village without any plan, but just trust in Providence to lead him the profitable way meaning the devil, I reckon. What is Huck recognizing about the king and the duke? Considering Huck s use of the term Providence earlier in the story (chapter 3) what might Huck be saying about God and/or the devil. 8. In Chapter 25 Huck is sickened by the way the king tells his story full of tears and flapdoodle and manipulates the emotions of the townspeople. Immediately afterward, someone leads the crowd in singing the doxology. What is Huck s reaction to this? How does Twain use this incident to further reveal the character of the king? 1996 Progeny Press 49
9. What is Huck s reaction when he learns that the theft of the gold was attributed to the slaves that had been sold? What does this reveal about Huck s character? Dig Deeper: 10. When Miss Mary Jane tells Huck she ll pray for him, Huck thinks, Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she d take a job that was more nearer her size. But I bet she done it just the same she was just that kind. She had the grit to pray for Judas if she took the notion there warn t no back-down to her, I judge. Huck seems to be seeing himself as beyond the reach of God; beyond salvation, perhaps. Do you think that there are some people who have gone beyond the reach of God? Explain your answer in a brief essay. (Consider passages such as Isaiah 1:15 20; Mark 3:28, 29; Acts 17:26 28; and 1 John 1:8 2:2.) 50 1996 Progeny Press