Mrs. Watson's Letter

Huck decides to write a letter to Mrs. Watson in guilt. He feels guilty about helping Jim stay hidden and being with a runaway. He feels as if he has stolen from Mrs. Watson and it sort of hurts him becasue Mrs. Watson has always been nice to Huck and showed him hospitality. While writing the letter he starts to think about what will happen to Jim. The adventures that Jim and Huck have gone through have created a special bond and friendship between the two. He is friends with JIm and starts to feel even guiltier because he is about to rat out Jim, his one and truly only friend. In saying this, Huck decides to rip up the letter because he doesn't want to turn his back on Jim. Huck also becomes worried about what Mrs.. Watson might think of him if she knew he helped a run away slave and stole her property. This shows the Huck isn't doing what is easiest but using a sense of morals. He is doing what he thinks is the best for the both of them rather then looking out for number one, himself. 

The Ruined Plan

In these chapters the Duke and the King come up with a plan to rob the Wilk's family. They want to steal all the money from them during Peter Wilk's funeral. With Huck not agreeing or liking the plan, he comes up with his own idea to stop the Duke and King's scheme. The first step that Huck comes up with is to steal their money and hide it from them. Since HUck has been with the Wilk's he knows that the money is hidden under the bed so he decides to take it then hide it from the Duke and the King. Once he is in possession of the money. people start walking in the house so he freaks out and hides it in Peter's coffin. Before Huck could get the money out, Peter is buried and the money is buried with him as well. Huck thinks he has a problem but instead he just walks up to Mary Jane and tells her everything. He tells her about the money and how the King and Duke are just con-artists and how they have just been scheming a plan to steal the money this whole time. 

Huck decides to ruin their plan because his conscious was getting to him. He knew that their plan was going to hurt a lot of people and he didn't agree with what they were doing, so he decided to do the right thing. 

 

Jim's Daughter

At the end of chapter 23 Huck and Jim start talking and get on the subject of Jim's family. Jim hears a long clack in the background and it reminds him of his daughter Lizabeth. He talks how she had scarlet fever and got better soon after. After she got healthy, JIm said that she was just standing around and doing no work so he yelled at her in order to get her to start working and once she didn't move and just kept standing there, he yelled some more. JIm said that he could remember getting so angry that he hit his four year old daughter across the head so hard that he felt bad after doing that. Lizabeth started to cry and with Jim still being mad he stood there and yelled, but once he realized what he had done was wrong he grabbed his daughter and just hugged her. He found out she couldn't hear his commands because the scarlet fever had left her deaf so then hitting her became extra wrong. It shows that even though Jim is a slave and by society is labeled as having no feelings, that he loves his family as much as any other white man does. It is showing that Jim is a very caring person and that even though he is a slave he is the same as any other white male. 

Duke and the King

The young man, the Duke, made a paste that was suppose to move tartar from your teeth but took some enamel with it. So he fled to avoid the anger of the townspeople. The old man, the long last son of Louis XVI, held temperance revival meetings but once people found out that he drank, he had to leave town as well. With both of them no knowing each other and being con-artists they try to con Huck and Jim into waiting on them hand and foot. They start being as polite as possible to them and do everything asked, once it becomes apparent to Huck that they are lying he decides not to tell them he knows in order to avoid conflict. In my opinion it is wise for them to play along because neither Jim nor Huck know what the two men are capable of or if they know the stories of Huck and Jim. If the two men do know about Jim or Huck then they could turn them in to get money so it is better for the both of them to keep a low profile and not upset the Duke and King. 

Huck and Buck's Similarities

The first similarity between Huck and Buck are their names. Their names are are only a letter different. Both of the boys are similar in age and live in the same sort of environment. They are both surrounded by the so called "civilized" people and slave owners. With their surroundings being in common they also would much rather be in the wild living the sort of "uncivilized" life rather then being raised in a nice household, like they are now. In their first encounter, Buck takes Huck into a clothing store and rapidly starts to fire question after question to Huck. He asks him if Huck likes to dress up for sunday school because he doesn't and if he would rather live "uncivilized" then "civilized". Just like Huck, Buck is always up for a real adventure and none of the Tom Sawyer nonsense of pretending. They go into the forest for one of these adventures they enjoy and come across one of their so called rivals. Buck tells Huck to hide while he shoots at him. Once the shot is fired they both take off.

Raftsmen

In this chapter you get a feel of the way raftsmen are looked at. Raftsmen are usually characterized as lower to middle class citizens where the upper class use steamboats rather then rafts. When the steamboat ran into Huck's raft and didn't stop to see if anyone was alright shows the reader how low raftsmen are seen as by the upper class. The raftsmen are also very generous and helpful people. When Huck told them that his pap was sick and needed to get him help they lended him a hand without thinking twice or asking any questions. Once they couldn't get to shore they still provided Huck with money for his upcoming journey.  The one negative quality is since they were so low on the food chain, they were willing to find slaves and turn them in. In one part of the chapter they go around asking if people have seen slaves so they can return them for money. Overall the raftsmen are nice and helpful, seen as scum by the upper class and are to be avoided by slaves. 

The Robbers

While Jim and Huck continue to go on their adventures of looting and stealing, one night they come across a wrecked steamboat. Huck eagerly wants to go explore the boat and take anything of any value off the boat. With Jim strongly disagreeing, Huck climbs aboard anyway. While on the boat he hears two men talking to each other about killing the other man on the boat. During Huck's time on the steamboat, Jim and Huck's raft gets loose. Huck wants to cut the line of the robbers' boat so they couldn't escape. While the robbers are in the steamboat, Jim and Huck steal the robbers' boat and leave them in the wrecked steamboat. They take the robbers' oat up stream until they find their own. Huck feels bad for leaving them there stranded and finds a ferry watchman and makes up some lie about his family being stranded. He helps them because in a way he sees it as a possible outcome for his future. If he doesn't help people in need then how can he ever expect anyone to help him. It shows us Huck, although out casted by society still likes other people and cares for them. It shows the reader that even though Huck is in a pretend of gang of robbers and pretends to do the wrong thing, he still wants to do the good thing and helping the robbers was the right thing to do; even though they died before they could be helped. 

Huck's Trick

 When Huck arrives to jackson Island there isn't a person in sight. He inhabits the island for three peaceful days in which he does not much of anything. On his fourth day he runs into Jim. Jim believing Huck to have been murdered, thinks that he is a ghost. Huck never denies that he is in fact a ghost but instead goes along with the idea. He goes along with the story of him being a ghost because he wants to see what Jim is all about. I think that Huck just wants to know if he can trust him and have a little fun while doing it. He has been by himself for the past 3 days and a young man of his age needs entertainment. He is meanly doing it to see if Jim is trustworthy or not, to see if Jim was sent to look for him and trying to enjoy him self all at the same time. He is insuring his own safety from Pap. Plus he can do it, Jim strongly believes that he is dead so why not have a little fun with it. He chooses to play a trick on Jim now because he isn't back home with the widow and he can't get in trouble. Huck is just acting his age knowing that the consequences of playing a trick on Jim this time are less harsh then they would have been when he was with Tom Sawyer.