Colonel Sherburn and Boggs

Although Sherburn and Boggs are only in the story for a short time, they make quite an impression. Neither has anything to do with the overall plot of the novel, so what gives, Mr. Twain? It seems like Twain may have thrown these two polar opposite men into the story to illustrate two common types of men in the antebellum South.

First, there’s Boggs. He’s the town drunk, and though he’s belligerent, everyone in the town believes him to be 100% harmless. Evidently he rumbles into town every once in a while and picks somebody to threaten. On this particular trip he’s chosen Colonel Sherburn. Everyone in town knows that threatening Sherburn could be a fatal mistake.

Sherburn doesn’t entertain Boggs’s drunken lectures, and ends up shooting Boggs dead. The bystanders form a mob and migrate over to Sherburn’s house, in attempt to lynch him.

Sherburn comes out and calmly faces them, and delivers the most articulate speech of the novel. He relegates everyone to the same level of pitiful. You might wonder why Twain decided to include this speech in the novel. Was this a speech Twain himself felt like making? Is Sherburn supposed to represent a true Southern gentleman of honor, while most of the population has devolved into embarrassing riffraff? There are also some Shakespearean undertones to the Boggs-Sherburn incident; try reading that section (which starts toward the end of Chapter 21) and giving it some good brain time.