Chapter Summaries
Chapter 29:
In chapter 29, the real Wilks brothers come. They explain that they got held back when their luggage got lost and William broke his arm. The doctor again says that the duke and the dauphin are frauds, and takes the real Wilks brothers to a tavern to test them. To do this, they have Harvey and the duke and dauphin sign a piece of paper and compare it to the original Wilks signature. The dauphin and duke don't have a matching signature, so they are suspected as frauds. The dauphin keeps saying that the duke is trying to fool everyone by messing up the signature. William, because of his broken arm, can't sign a signature either, so they can't prove who's the fake. Harvey Wilks tries to prove he's the real Harvey by saying his brother Peter had a tattoo on his chest, and asked the caretaker to confirm. Meanwhile the dauphin says that he knows of a tattoo as well, but a different one. The caretaker says that he saw no tattoo. The crowd decides to see themselves, and they dig up the coffin. The crowd goes crazy when they find the $6,000 that Huck had hid in the coffin. When a riot breaks out, Huck escapes, and finds Jim, and sail away on a canoe.
Chapter 30:
In this chapter, Huck and Jim find the duke and dauphin sailing towards them on a boat. The dauphin is really angry at Huck, but the duke stops him from doing anything too violent. They say how they also escaped when the riot broke out. They duke thinks the dauphin hid the gold, and the dauphin thinks the duke hid it. This conflict almost results in a fight between the duke and dauphin.
Chapter 31:
In chapter 31, the duke and dauphin continue to try their cons in different towns, with no luck. In one town, they get into a fight at a tavern, and Huck runs back to the boat to sail away, but he can't find Jim. He finds out that a man found Jim and the flier the duke printed off of him, thinking that there was actually a reward for Jim. Huck find out that this man was actually the dauphin, who then sold Jim to a nearby farmer. Huck decides to be a rebel and help rescue Jim from the farm. On his way to talk to the farmer, Huck sees the duke putting up more fliers for "The Royal Nonesuch." He lies and says that he also saw Jim get taken away to a farm 40 miles away, and tells Huck to go there.
Discussion Questions:
How do the duke and king behave towards each other on these chapters? How would you compare this with their behavior in earlier chapters?
The duke and king are getting more fed up with each other. They have spent too much time planning and conning together and not getting a big reward for it. It's different from the earlier chapters since they no longer get along with each other as well as they used to.
Why does Huck decide to "go to hell"?
Huck decides to go to hell because he thinks of all the good times he and Jim have had together. He thinks about how he's seen that Jim is a normal person and he doesn't want him locked up in slavery.
How does Huck escape the Wilks investigation?
When they crowd finds the money in the coffin, Huck takes the chance to escape in the chaos. Doing this, he gets away and escapes any questions being asked by the crowd or the Wilks'.
Reflections
It's interesting to see Huck's maturity still growing. First, he escaped from the duke and dauphin, not wanting to be a part of their cons anymore. Then, he realizes Jim had been sold to a farmer. Knowing this, he thinks of how kind and caring Jim has been. He sees that he's a normal person, even though he's black. He takes the chance and decides to go in after him and save him form th