Word Choice in Huckleberry Finn

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn uses several examples of figurative language including personification and idioms. In this activity, students can display their understanding of figurative language by identifying the examples and creating a literal and/or figurative portrayal of the language.

"a white to make a body sick"

The first example is personification, which describes how Pap looks when he arrives, “There waran’t no color in his face, where his face showed it was white; not like another man’s white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body’s flesh crawl – a tree toad white, a fish belly white.”

"slap down a line"

The second example describes the poetic creativity of Emmeline Grangerford, “He said she would slap down a line, and if she couldn’t find anything to rhyme it with she would just scratch it out and slap down another one, and go ahead.”

"thick as thieves"

The last example demonstrates the King and Duke’s close friendship and how they got drunk together on the raft; “So the King sneaked into the wigwam, and took to his bottle for comfort; and before long the Duke tackled his bottle; and so in about a half an hour they was as thick as thieves again, and the tighter they got, the lovinger they got…”