Huck 1-2

Goal: To understand Huck better as a character AND as a mouthpiece for Twain.

DO NOW: Freedom means different things to different people. What does it mean to you as a high school sophomore and a resident of Winchester, MA? (Don't hesitate to touch upon the spiritual, social, intellectual and emotional aspects of your lives.)

Next: Let's read chapter 3 together to get more comfortable with the dialect Twain uses and to compare Huck with Tom more closely.

Discussion Questions:

1. What's the effect of having Huck talk about the author, Mark Twain?
2. Who is Huck? His emotions, intelligence, spiritual and social self, habits?
3. Based on your reading of the early chapters of Huck Finn, what does freedom mean to a boy or a man living in the 1800s?
4. Do you think freedom is the same for Huck, Tom and Jim?
5. Who is Jim? Is Jim stereotyped? What is Huck and Tom’s assumption about Jim before they get to know him?

Writing: Why might a writer choose to have an unreliable narrator--one who doesn't understand the full significance of the events he comments on--in his novel. In other words, how and why does Huck function as a mouthpiece for Twain?