The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Lesson Plan

Is Huck essentially just as much of a con-artist as the duke and dauphin are?

Huckleberry Finn is full of dangerous schemes, cons, and frauds, many of them stemming from the duke and the dauphin. It is obvious that these con men are bad, taking advantage of a large variety of innocent people. Yet Huck himself plays a large variety of games and even cons a few people, such as the slave-hunters, creating the tale about the smallpox in his family so that they don’t find Jim. As Huck acknowledges, it seems that telling a lie can actually be an advantage, depending on its objective. This understanding is part of Huck’s growth, as he discovers that some of the guidelines he has...