Huckleberry Finn's Satirical Portrayal of Religion and Society

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Mark Twain’s masterpiece “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is considered by many to be the greatest American novel ever written, which incorporates contrasting themes around a central plot to emphasize the purposes of humor and insight. It is a typical satire by using the humor to criticize the hypocrisy of “Civilized” Society and get a rise out of the gullibility of people. in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, the Grangerford and shepherdson families which had malevolence toward each other, pious widow who owned slaves and the duck and dauphin who disguise themselves as members of the upper classes are the hypocrites just like John proctor, in “crucible”, who’s seen as a moral, well-respected man on the surface, but in fact betrayed his wife and had an adulatory with Abilgail, and those judges who claimed themselves as religious and justice people but killed innocent people in order to keep the reputation and position in the society.

Widow Douglass, the pious woman with Miss Watson who adjusts Huck’s life with strict etiquette and wants to teach Huck all the things his father has neglected. Huck has to go to eat on time when Douglass rings the bell and has to wait until she tucks down her head, gets a little over her plate. Huck is forced to wear elaborate clothing with collar all the time, get educated, learn the social values and confine the urge to smoke because it’s considered wrong and unsanitary. Huck doesn’t want to live with them because their unnecessary rigidity of their lifestyles. “living in a house all the time, and everything so regular.” Widow Douglass owns slave is a contradiction of being a Christian which points out the aspect of hypocrisy. It’s ironic that “they brought the slaves in and had prayers, t...

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... “The preaching was all about brotherly love,” but they don’t even show any amiable attitude toward each other but keep the feud everlasting. Their method of promoting brotherly love in the church is totally hypocritical because they are fighting each other savagely the moment they get out of the church, seeing that they are just pretending to be sincere and this exposes their most hypocritical sides.

In conclusion, in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Twain satirically portrays organized religion and society's morals throughout the novel. People that Huck and Jim met along on the way regardless of the Grangerford and shepherdson families duck and dauphin disguise themselves and keep true identities of greed, prejudice and hypocrisy hidden. Hypocrisy, the one of the major themes in the novel, transpires the ugliest side of human beings and exposes the brutal society.

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