Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Huckleberry Finn- Chapters 21-24


In Chapter 21, the Romeo and Juliet play come back into the picture and the Duke and the Lord decide to fulfill the play in the next town they reach. They practiced until they got the parts right and when they finally reached another town they were excited because they found out that there was a circus in town. They made flyers and posters telling about their playing hoping a good amount of people would come to see it. They stumble upon a drunk man in the streets outside of Colonel Sherburn’s place. The drunk man keeps making such a fuss, so the Colonel comes out and shoots him. I didn’t think it was right for the Colonel to shoot him because he was a human being just like everyone else and didn’t deserve to be punished for his belligerent behavior in that manor. After he shot them he just tossed the gun and walked off like it was nothing. The people of the town laid Bibles all atop of him and his poor daughter had to be pulled off of him. After a wall the town became mad of this incident and went around fussing and yelling.

In Chapter 22, Huck describes how the whole town stormed to Sherburn’s place and was going to lynch him. He came to his front porch and stood there with his gun and didn’t move. He wasn’t afraid of any of them because according to him none of them were men. He proclaimed that they all were “half-a-man” and they weren’t going to do anything to him. He threatened them and said that if they were “real” men then they would come at nighttime like people in the South did. They all scattered about and Huck wandered down to the circus. There were all kinds of people there and Huck watched as men and women enter in the circus circling around the ring. A drunk man stumbled upon into the ring and protested to let him ride. Finally, after fighting against him the ringmaster let him ride and was good! He stood upon the horse and rode around stripping off his seventeen suits he was wearing. The “drunk” man played a trick on his master and everybody was thrilled. After the circus was over with the Lord and the Duke held their play, which was a fail. Only twelve people came and they left early as well. That made the Lord and the Duke very made so they made a sign that announced another show and included “Ladies and children not admitted.”

In Chapter 23, Huck tells us about the plays that the Lord and the Duke put on for the town. To their surprise the audience was full of men and they enjoyed the show because the king performed the show completely naked with just paint covering his body. This continued on for three nights and by the end of those nights they had collected $465. The third night the Duke notices that men were coming in with eggs and rotten vegetables to throw at them, so he gets out of there as soon as possible. They board up on the raft and take off down the river. That night when they were floating down the river, Jim woke Huck up moaning and whining about being homesick. Jim told Huck that he would do anything to see is wife and children again, which shocked Huck because he thought that most slaves didn’t care for their family. Jim proved him otherwise and told Huck about how he missed his children and about how his daughter was deaf. He didn’t know this at first, but he learned it very quickly when she didn’t respond when he yelled in her ear.

In Chapter 24, the Duke and the Lord dress up Huck in calico coats and paint him blue so no one would question him about being a runaway slave. As they were traveling down the river, they saw a young boy sitting upon the shore. He told the Lord and Huck that he was waiting for the steamboat to Orleans, so they invited him to go with him and he began to tell him the story of how there was a man who wanted to see his two brothers before he died. The Lord and the Duke felt bad, so they pretended to be the two brothers that were going into town to see their brother. When they got into town and asked for where their brother lived, the townspeople told them that he had died the night before and they became “sad.”  

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