# Miss Watson — The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn character guide

> Miss Watson in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Old Miss Watson

**First appearance:** 0003-i

## Snapshot

The widow's slim, goggled sister who drills Huck on spelling and scripture while owning the man he'll help free.

## Who they are

Miss Watson is a tolerable old maid with a spelling-book and a set of rules for everything, pecking at Huck to sit straight and stop gaping. She lectures him about the good place and the bad place, then sells Jim downriver for eight hundred dollars without a flicker of doubt about her own salvation. Her piety and her slaveholding sit side by side without contradiction, and that quiet hypocrisy is exactly what Huck has to unlearn on the river.

## In the story

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/huckleberry_finn_se/chapters/i)

The Widow Douglas's sister; strict and religious; teaches Huck spelling and lectures him about heaven and hell.

### [Chapter III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/huckleberry_finn_se/chapters/iii)

Miss Watson scolds Huck about his clothes, tries to teach him to pray, and dismisses his questions about prayer.

### [Chapter IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/huckleberry_finn_se/chapters/iv)

Miss Watson scolds Huck for spilling salt and crosses him off, showing her strict and superstitious nature.

### [Chapter VIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/huckleberry_finn_se/chapters/viii)

Jim overhears Miss Watson planning to sell him to a trader for eight hundred dollars.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/huckleberry_finn_se/characters/miss_watson
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/huckleberry_finn_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/huckleberry_finn_se/characters