I wonder if you are actually refering to what Huck
overhears in Chapter Eight when he sees the boat full of his friends and loved ones who
are eagerly looking for Huck or at least trying to find his body. This does not occur in
Chapters 5-7 which do not contain any conversations that Huck overhears that could be
considered poignant.
The reason why this event is poignant
is that Huck's friends believe that he might have been killed, which is of course just
what Huck wanted them to believe, as is indicated in the way that he created a scene to
suggest this fact. Of course, Huck's friends don't know about this and are obviously
upset and grief-stricken at the thought of Huck's death. Note how this scene is
described:
By
and by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they could a run out a plank and
walked ashore. Most everybody was on the boat. Pap, and Judge Thatcher, and Bessie
Thatcher, and Jo Harper, and Tom Sawyer, and his old Aunt Polly, and Sid and Mary, and
plenty more. Everybody was talking about the murder, but the captain broke in and
says:"Look sharp, now; the current sets in the closest
here, and maybe he's washed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water's
edge. I hope, so,
anyway."
The way in which all
of Huck's friends are talking about his supposed "murder" and Huck is so close adds both
a poignant and slightly ironic note to the text, as they look for Huck's body on the
river.
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