This section has some downright confusing things happening throughout. First, we follow Huck and Jim further down the river. A great fog causes them to separate and spend hours whooping trying to track one another's movements. Huck is confronted with the fact that Jim genuinely cares about his whereabouts after he tries to trick Jim into thinking that their separation was just a dream. Then they are separated once again, when a boat rams them causing Huck to wind up on shore with the Grangerfords, a family with a vendetta against the Shepherdson family for reasons unknown. After a shootout, Huck leaves the Granderfords and reconnects with Jim. Not long after, Jim and Huck meet two deceitful characters, the Duke and the Dauphin. But the part that most confused me was the murder of the town drunk and Sherburn's speech that follows.
Sherburn's speech is one of the most profound statements on human nature in the entire book. He attacks the cowardice of the crowd and behavior of his fellow citizens. Like Huck, we are moved by his speech but confused. After all, he just killed a man in cold-blood!
Even though this section is confusing, it leads me to believe a very important fact about human kind. We are all incredibly imperfect. A murderer can cannot society's flaws just as easy as a paster can preach about brotherly love.
I also found Sherburn's speech to be a very profound moment in the novel. He states how he perceives human nature to be quite plainly, which contrasts with how Twain approaches it in the rest of the novel, where he never actually says straight-out what is right or wrong. Like you said though, the irony of Sherburn being the person to give such a speech is confusing. Its strange to be receiving so much "logic" from someone who just killed another man. I like your conclusion that we are all incredibly imperfect, which is the most sure thing we can pull out of this section.
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