The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn · Chapter
Chapter XXVII explained
Huck hides the stolen gold in Peter Wilks's coffin to protect it from the king and duke.
What happens
Huck hides the stolen gold in Peter Wilks's coffin to protect it from the king and duke. The funeral proceeds with an undertaker's comedic interruption involving a dog and a rat. The king sells the Wilks family's slaves, separating a mother from her children, causing public outrage. The king and duke suspect Huck of stealing the gold, but he deflects blame onto the slaves. Huck wrestles with whether to write to Mary Jane about the gold's location.
Themes in this chapter
Hypocrisy of Society
The townspeople express outrage at the separation of the slave family, yet they participate in and accept the institution of slavery itself.
Deception and Identity
The king and duke continue their fraudulent impersonation of the Wilks brothers, deceiving the entire town and the grieving daughters.
Moral Development
Huck grapples with guilt over the fraud and the hidden gold, showing his growing conscience and internal moral struggle.
Characters to notice
- Huckleberry Finn
Hides the stolen money in Peter Wilks's coffin, deflects suspicion onto the slaves, and struggles with guilt over the king and duke's fraud.
- The King
Sells the Wilks family's slaves, separating a mother from her children, and pressures Huck about the missing gold.
- The Duke
Uneasy about the king's actions, questions Huck about the gold, and shows some awareness of the fraud's consequences.
- Mary Jane Wilks
Grieves at her father's coffin, unaware of the hidden gold, and is deceived by the king's plan to take her and her sisters to England.
- Peter Wilks
Deceased; his coffin becomes the hiding place for the stolen gold.
Key passages
“Them poor things was that glad and happy it made my heart ache to see them getting fooled and lied to so, but I didn’t see no safe way for me to chip in and change the general tune.”
The girls were so happy it hurt Huck to see them deceived, but he felt powerless to intervene.
Huck's empathy and internal conflict are evident as he observes the king's manipulation.
“I thought them poor girls and them niggers would break their hearts for grief; they cried around each other, and took on so it most made me down sick to see it.”
The girls and the enslaved people were devastated by the sale, crying and clinging to each other, which made Huck feel ill.
Highlights the emotional impact of family separation during slavery.
“I tucked the moneybag in under the lid, just down beyond where his hands was crossed, which made me creep, they was so cold, and then I run back across the room and in behind the door.”
Huck placed the moneybag in the coffin near the corpse's cold hands, then hid behind the door.
Shows Huck's resourcefulness and the physical discomfort of his actions.