CHAPTER 21 Practice Quiz — The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: CHAPTER 21
What Shakespeare play do the king and duke rehearse the balcony scene from?
Romeo and Juliet
What does the duke criticize about the way the king delivers Romeo's lines?
He bellows them out like a bull instead of saying them softly and lovingly as Romeo should.
What play do the king and duke practice a swordfight scene from?
Richard III
What materials does the duke use to make their swords?
Oak laths (thin strips of oak wood)
What famous speech does the duke decide the king should perform as an encore?
Hamlet's soliloquy ("To be, or not to be")
What is wrong with the duke's version of Hamlet's soliloquy?
It is a garbled mashup of lines from multiple Shakespeare plays, including Hamlet, Macbeth, and Richard III.
What event is taking place in the Arkansas town that afternoon?
A circus
What building does the duke hire for their Shakespeare show?
The courthouse
What fake names do the king and duke use on the show bills?
David Garrick the younger (the duke) and Edmund Kean the elder (the king)
How does Huck describe the houses in the Arkansas town?
They are old, unpainted, dried-up frame buildings set three or four feet above ground on stilts to stay above floodwaters.
What do the loafers on the main street spend their time doing?
Whittling with Barlow knives, chewing tobacco, gaping, yawning, stretching, and watching for amusements like dog fights.
Who is Boggs, and what is he known for in town?
Boggs is a harmless old drunk who rides into town monthly, yelling threats at people but never actually hurting anyone.
Who does Boggs threaten to kill in Chapter 21?
Colonel Sherburn
What ultimatum does Colonel Sherburn give Boggs?
He tells Boggs he will endure the abuse only until one o'clock. If Boggs insults him after that time, Sherburn will find him no matter how far he travels.
Who do the townspeople send for to try to calm Boggs down?
Boggs's daughter
How does Colonel Sherburn kill Boggs?
He shoots him twice with a pistol in the street, in front of the whole town.
Where do they take Boggs after the shooting?
To a little drugstore, where they lay him on the floor with a Bible under his head and another on his chest.
How old is Boggs's daughter, and how does Huck describe her?
She is about sixteen and described as "very sweet and gentle-looking, but awful pale and scared."
What does the man in the stovepipe hat do after the shooting?
He reenacts the entire shooting step by step for the crowd, marking positions with his cane and mimicking the actions and words.
What does the crowd decide to do to Colonel Sherburn at the end of the chapter?
They decide to lynch him and rush toward his house, tearing down clotheslines for rope.
What is the admission price listed on the duke's show bills?
25 cents for adults; children and servants, 10 cents
What literary technique does Twain use when the crowd treats the shooting reenactment as entertainment?
Satire and irony — Twain exposes the moral numbness and voyeurism of the townspeople, who turn a real tragedy into a spectacle.
What theme does the Boggs-Sherburn episode illustrate?
It illustrates themes of mob mentality, the Southern code of honor, senseless violence, and moral cowardice in small-town society.
What does the duke call Boggs's name "Capet" a reference to?
It is a reference to the French royal family (the Capetian dynasty), mocking the king's pretension to royalty.
What does Huck's detailed description of the Arkansas town reveal about Twain's social commentary?
It reveals Twain's critique of poverty, idleness, and casual cruelty in the antebellum South, using social realism to expose the dark underbelly of small-town life.