Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Chapter 27 Summary

Summary

Huck sneaks downstairs at night and, finding the watchers asleep, hides the money-bag in Peter Wilks's coffin, then returns to bed worried about whether the King will find it. The next day the town files past the open coffin at the funeral; Huck watches the solemn scene, the undertaker’s theatrical maneuvers, and Reverend Hobson’s long sermon, all the while fretting that the lid will be screwed down with the money inside and that his scheme will fail. After the burial, the King stages a hurried plan to settle the estate and takes advantage of the grieving girls, promising to take them to England and pretending to act in their interest.

The King immediately auctions property and slaves, selling the family’s negroes to traders for drafts; the girls and the slaves are torn apart and weep over the separation, a sight that makes Huck sick but he reassures himself the sale is only temporary and the slaves will return. At dawn the King and the Duke awaken Huck with anxious faces: they suspect something has gone wrong with the money hidden in the King’s room. Under pressure Huck lies that he saw the negroes go into the room, implying they staged a show of grief and might have hidden the bag, which relieves the impostors but also shifts blame away from Huck while feeding the King’s fury and the Duke’s unease. The chapter closes with Huck feeling guilty but also relieved that he dodged suspicion.

Key events

1. Huck sneaks into the parlor and hides the money-bag under the coffin lid.
2. Mary Jane kneels and weeps at the coffin; villagers file by during the funeral.
3. The undertaker stages a silent, theatrical control of the funeral and quiets a barking dog.
4. The King urges quick settlement and announces an auction of the property.
5. The King sells the Wilks' slaves to traders, separating family members.
6. At dawn the King and Duke confront Huck; Huck says he saw the slaves enter the King's room, deflecting suspicion.

Analysis

This chapter advances the novel’s exploration of deception, conscience, and social hypocrisy. Huck’s clandestine hiding of the money in the coffin is morally ambiguous: he intends to help the Wilks girls but acts furtively and then shrinks from further risk, revealing his conflicted conscience and fear of legal consequences. The funeral scene showcases Mark Twain’s satirical eye: the town’s solemnity, the undertaker’s performative competence, and the melodramatic sermon contrast with the trivialities and self-interest that follow—the King’s opportunistic auctioning of slaves and property. The King and Duke’s confidence in manipulating grief demonstrates how imposture exploits social ritual. The sale of the slaves foregrounds the human cost of the con: the girls’ and slaves’ heartbreak grounds the chapter emotionally and condemns the charlatans’ greed without heavy-handed sermonizing.

Narrative technique mixes close first-person moral introspection with vivid, comic set-pieces (the undertaker’s gliding, the dog distraction). The coffin becomes a loaded symbol—of death, of concealment, and of the moral rot beneath outward respectability—while the contrast between public mourning and private scheming reinforces the novel’s theme of appearance versus reality. Huck’s final lie, blaming the slaves, complicates his ethical trajectory: it spares him immediate danger but implicates him in the same moral failures he quietly deplores, foreshadowing deeper conflicts about complicity and courage.

Important quotes

“I crept to their doors and listened; they was snoring.”

NarratorOpens the chapter and establishes Huck's stealthy attempt to recover or secure the money under cover of night.

“I tucked the money-bag 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.”

NarratorHuck hides the money in Peter's coffin, an act that burdens him with guilt and anxiety about future discovery.

“He was the softest, glidingest, stealthiest man I ever see; and there warn’t no more smile to him than there is to a ham.”

NarratorA vivid description of the undertaker’s theatrical professionalism that satirizes the performance of mourning and social ritual.

Characters in Chapter 27

• Huckleberry Finn
• Mary Jane Wilks
• Joanna Wilks
• Susan Wilks
• The King
• The Duke
• Reverend Hobson
• Widow Bartley
• Undertaker
• the niggers