TERM PAPER IDEAS

1. What is Huck's attitude toward religion as it is practiced (and taught) by people like Miss Watson?

2. What is Huck's attitude toward his father? Explain how this attitude is or is not reflected in the way he deals with other people in the novel.

3. How are Huck and Tom different in the way they look at the world?

4. Trace Twain's development of Jim from the foolish character in the second chapter to the character who is sold to Silas Phelps.

5. Select one or more comic scenes from the novel and show how Twain structures them to make you laugh.

6. Show how Huck's attitude toward Jim does or does not change in the course of the book.

7. Show how Huck's attitude toward the institution of slavery does or does not change in the course of the book.

8. What is the role of superstition in the lives of the major characters in the novel?

9. How does Twain separate himself from Huck when he describes the Grangerfords' home?

10. Show how Huck's feeling for the Grangerfords changes from admiration to disgust in Chapter 19.

11. Why did Huck allow the duke and dauphin to join them on the raft, even though he knew they were crooks?

12. Explain why you think Colonel Boggs is a hero or a villain in Twain's eyes.

13. Show how Huck's grasp of history in Chapter 23 is less firm than he wants Jim to believe.

14. How does the king get the information he needs to set up the swindle of the Wilks girls?

15. How does Mark Twain show human nature in a bad light in Chapter 25? Include references to the way the king pretends to be an Englishman.

16. Trace the development of Huck's feelings for Mary Jane Wilks.

17. How does Twain portray the undertaker at Peter Wilks' funeral as a comic character?

18. What are Huck's conflicting attitudes toward telling the truth?

19. How does Huck evaluate himself morally? What basis does he have for his evaluation?

20. How does Huck evaluate himself in terms of Tom Sawyer?

21. How do you think Twain feels about Huck and about Tom?

22. Explain how Huck gets to be mistaken for Tom, and Tom for his brother Sid. -

23. Show the similarity between Huck's final evaluation of the duke and king, and his feelings about his father and the thieves he runs into on the Walter Scott.

24. Explain why you think the long "escape-plan" episode is a good or bad way to end the novel.

25. What do you think Huck will do immediately after the end of the story?

Table of Contents | Message Board | Printable Version | MonkeyNotes