Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a novel about a boy named Huck who fakes his death and travels down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave named Jim. Throughout the novel they encounter many different characters, most of whom Twain uses to satirize the South. The definition of satire is “a technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society by using humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule. It intends to improve humanity by criticizing its follies and foibles.” Twain satirizes the values, and intelligence of the South through the characters of the Shepherdsons and Grangerfords, Colonel Sherburn and Boggs, and the people scammed by the King and Duke.
Twain satirizes
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the Grangerfords by describing their house and their values. While Huck and Jim are traveling down the Mississippi River they get separated and Huck makes it ashore. He wanders toward a house, where he meets the Grangerfords. Everything described in the Grangerfords’ house seems gaudy, but Huck and the family think it is quite fancy. “I hadn’t seen no house out in the country before that was so nice and had so much style. It didn’t have an iron latch on the front door, nor a wooden one with a buckskin string, but a brass knob to turn, the same as houses in a town. There warn’t no bed in the parlor….There was a clock on the middle of the mantel-piece, with a picture of a town painted on the bottom half of the glass front, and a round place in the middle of it for the sun, and you could see the pendulum swing behind it”(92-93). Twain is showing this Southern family through Huck’s unbiased, innocent view to create satire. Huck thinks that having a brass door knob and no bed in the parlor is very nice and rare for a house to have, showing how uncultured and innocent he is. He also thinks that having a decorative clock—most people would describe as gaudy—is stylish. This satirizes the South by showing what this family think of as nice and stylish, most people think of as gaudy or cheap looking. The Grangerfords think that they have great taste in material things, but it is very gaudy. The Grangerfords think they are much greater than they actually are. They also think that their feud shows that they have good values, but it shows that their values are twisted. Twain also satirizes the Grangerfords by showing their feud with the Shepherdsons. One of the Grangerfords is named Buck; he is only Huck’s age, but is fighting in the feud as well. Huck does not know what a feud is, so Buck explains it to him: “A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other man’s brother kills him; then the other brothers on both side, goes for one another; then the cousins chip in—and by-and-by everybody’s killed off, and there ain’t no more feud”(99). The Grangerfords think that fighting this feud shows that they have good family and social values, but it actually shows that their values are twisted. They think that they are better than everyone else, because of their values, but Twain shows this is not true by his satirical description of the feud. Twain’s satirical use of the King and Duke show how they think they are above everyone and that Southerners can be very gullible.
They are pretending to be a King and a Duke, which shows satire because they think they should be above everyone else, just like a King and Duke are. By scamming innocent people and feeling no remorse they think that they have the right to scam people who are under them in their minds. The King and the Duke are actually under the people that they scam because they are conmen and criminals, which are considered to be low-lifes. The first scam that the King and Duke commit is when the King pretends to be a Pirate at a camp-meeting. He claims that he is trying to recruit new men for his crew, but was robbed the night before and does not have a cent, but “he would get there anyway, and every time he convinced a pirate he would say to him, ‘Don’t you thank me, don’t you give me no credit, it all belongs to them dear people in Pokeville camp-meeting, natural brothers and benefactors of the race and that dear preacher there, the truest friend a pirate ever had!’ And then he busted into tears, and so did everybody”(121). The people at the meeting pass around a hat and give him eighty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents. Twain is satirizing that Southerners are nice, but might be too nice and trusting, which ends up making them ignorant. People cannot believe everything that they hear, but the Southerners are so devoted to their religion and nice, that …show more content…
they do not think that the King could possibly be scamming them. The King and the Duke also pretend to be the brothers of Peter Wilks who had just died; the King uses a terrible British accent and pretends to know sign language when signing to the Duke. The Doctor says that they are frauds because their accents are fake, but the Wilks girls do not believe him. Mary Jane “hove up the bag of money and put it in the king’s hands, and says, ‘Take this six thousand dollars, and invest it for me and my sisters any way you want to, and don’t give us no receipt for it’”(154-155). Mary Jane is very trusting of the King and Duke—even though she just met them—because they claim to be her Uncles. In this case she and her sisters are too trusting. Twain satirizes this by showing that the girls are ignorant in being that trusting. Twain satirizes the South by showing the conflict between Colonel Sherburn and Boggs. Colonel Sherburn is tired of Boggs causing trouble and tells him that he will give him “Till one o’clock, mind—no longer. If you open your mouth against me only once, after that time, you can’t travel so far but I will find you’”(130). One o’clock comes around and Boggs’ friends are trying to get him out of the street, but Sherburn is there with a pistol. “Boggs throws up both of his hands, and says, ‘O Lord, don’t shoot!’ Bang! Goes the first shot, and he staggers back clawing at the air—bang! Goes the second one, and he tumbles backwards onto the ground, heavy and solid, with his arms spread out”(131). Boggs opened his mouth only once, so Sherburn is obviously a man of his word. The rest of the townspeople think that it is wrong for Sherburn to shoot Boggs—taking the law into his own hands. Ironically, the townspeople decide to take the law into their own hands; “somebody said Sherburn ought to be lynched….They swarmed up the street towards Sherburn’s house, a-whooping and yelling and raging like Injuns”(133). This satirizes the South by showing how the Southern's are acting uncivilized. They do not obey the law or wait for a judicial ruling; Twain uses the mob that is after Sherburn to show that Southerners are cowards, when actually having to complete a task. Sherburn is talking to the mob of people that claim to have come to lynch him and says, “In the South one man, all by himself, has stopped a stage full of men, in the day-time, and robbed the lot….Why don’t your juries hang murderers? Because they’re afraid the man’s friends will shot them in the back, in the dark—and it’s just what they would do”(134). Sherburn stops them just by laughing and saying that they are not going to lynch him. Twain's satirical use of the townspeople shows that Southerners do not wait for the law, but most do not go through with their revenge because they are cowards. Throughout the novel, Twain satirizes the South by showing Huck interact with different characters like the Shepherdsons and Grangerfords, Colonel Sherburn and Boggs, and the people that the King and Duke scam.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should be read as a satire because the novel makes fun of Southern culture in the 19th-century with the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, and ridicule. By mocking the South Twain gives an alternative to improve humanity by people doing the opposite of what he is mocking. The alternative for the way that the Grangerfords act is for people to not be so focused on material things; this is shown through the exaggeration of what Huck and the Grangerfords see as fancy. Twain’s alternative to this feud is suggested through Sofia Grangerford when she runs away with a Shepardson. She chose love of killing, which is what Twain thinks everyone should do. Twain’s alternative to the ignorance expressed through satirizing the King, the Duke, and the people that they scam is to still be trusting, but not so trusting that you end up getting scammed because of it; and to be modest, because even if one thinks they are above everyone they might be below everyone. By satirizing the mob that is after Colonel Sherburn Twain’s alternative to “improve humanity” is for people to form their own opinions and not just follow the crowd. Twain uses satire to point out the foolishness of the United States in the mid-19th century. Twain satirizes certain parts of
the South to show the irony in the Southerners actions through Huck's innocent eyes.
In Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the Grangerfords and Pap are two of the characters who are used by Twain to condemn civilized society. Twain employs satire to express his belief that “civilized” society is neither moral, ethical, nor civilized. Exaggeration, stereotyping, and irony are used throughout the story to satirize and to expose the Grangerfords as the typical southern aristocrats and pap as the typical drunken “white trash.”
Mark Twain, a famous American writer-satirist wrote many books highly acclaimed throughout the world. For his masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the literary establishment recognized him as one of the greatest writers America would ever produce. This novel is about a teenage boy by the name of Huck Finn whose father is an alcoholic. Because of his violence, Huck runs away and finds a runaway slave Jim. Instead of turning Jim in, Huck goes against society and makes a decision to help Jim break free from slavery. As they travel together, Huck learns more and more about Jim and starts to understand that the common stereotype of black people is wrong. Huck sees there is no difference between Jim and any white man he knows except for skin color. Risking his life and overcoming many difficulties on the way, Huck succeeds in freeing Jim. Focusing on racism, alcoholism and mob mentality, Mark Twain uses his enthusiastic style of writing and satirizes the three traits throughout the novel.
One aspect of the novel in which Twain uses satire is the idea of family feuds. Mid-way through the novel, Huck meets young Buck Grangerford. Huck soon learns of an everlasting feud existing between the Grangerfords and the neighboring family, the Shepherdsons. Buck explains to Huck his fierce hatred for the Shepherdson family, but also that he truly doesn’t know why there is a feud or how it came to be. The reader finds out that the two feuding families essentially switch off killing members of the opposing family. As Huck experiences first hand a skirmish between Buck Grangerford and Harvey Shephardson, in which Buck tries to shoot Harvey, he asks Buck what Harvey had ever done. Buck responds with, “Him? He never done nothing to me(120).” Confused, Huck then asks what he wants to kill him for. Buck answers, “Why nothing- only it’s on account of the feud(120).” In this instance, Huck questions the logic behind such foolishness. He is young, but he understands that this feud has no point. He represents Twain’s own questioning of man’s preoccupation with brutality, and his illusion of false honor and chivalry. Taken at face value, the few Shepherdson-Grangerford scenes seem nothing more than a meaningless cameo on Twain’s part, however with closer inspection, we see the true motiv...
Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the greatest American novels ever written. The story is about Huck, a young boy who is coming of age and is escaping from his drunken father. Along the way he stumbles across Miss Watson's slave, Jim, who has run away because he overhead that he would be sold. Throughout the story, Huck is faced with the moral dilemma of whether or not to turn Jim in. Mark Twain has purposely placed these two polar opposites together in order to make a satire of the society's institution of slavery. Along the journey, Twain implies his values through Huck on slavery, the two-facedness of society, and represents ideas with the Mississippi River.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain is about the great adventures that Huck finn has with his slave Jim on the Missouri River. The story tells not only about the adventures Huck has, but more of a deeper understanding of the society he lives in. Twain had Huck born into a low class society of white people; his father was a drunken bum and his mother was dead. He was adopted by the widow Douglas who tried to teach him morals, ethics, and manners that she thought fit in a civilized society. Huck never cared for these values and ran away to be free of them. During Huck’s adventure with Jim he unknowingly realized that he didn't agree with society’s values and could have his own assumptions and moral values. Twain uses this realization to show how the civilized and morally correct social values that was introduced to Huck was now the civilized and morally contradicting values.
Have you ever seen the Colbert Report, The Simpsons, or even Family Guy? If you have then you have seen works of satire. In “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain, the author is famous for his use of satire, he employs this writing technique to ridicule and question fundamental aspects of society like religion, laws, and racism. In Huck Finn the portrayal of race relations is used to urge the reader to question the basic injustices of racial inequality.
Mark Twain, who is a realistic fiction writer, incorporates satire and humor in his writing, including Archetypal elements to modify how the reader interprets the story. He uses many archetypal characters like Huck and Jim who both can be argued as the heroes. They both have good intentions and help others. Mark Twain portrays Jim as a deeply caring and loyal friend. Jim becomes a father figure to Huck, helping him realize the human face of slavery. Twain Portrays Huck as a young and naive boy who has been under the wrong influence for a long time. Another archetypal element that Mark Twain uses is Jims Quest for freedom. This was a quest for most all African Americans, to run away north so you could be free. But Jim was one of the few who was brave enough to do so; that’s he can be classified as the hero in the story. But Jim’s life is not too bad compared to historical records about the lives of slaves. Even though he had to struggle for his freedom, he didn’t have any good reason to leave. His life contested of helping round and not doing hard enduring work like some of the other slaves. The way Jim’s life is portrayed in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Mark Twain criticizes the life of African Americans at the time.
Ransomed? Whats that???.. it means that we keep them till they're dead (10). This dialogue reflects Twains witty personality. Mark Twain, a great American novelist, exploits his humor, realism, and satire in his unique writing style in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain, born in 1835, wrote numerous books throughout his lifetime. Many of his books include humor; they also contain deep cynicism and satire on society. Mark Twain, the author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, exemplifies his aspects of writing humor, realism, and satire throughout the characters and situations in his great American novel.
No matter in the past or present, the world never lacks actors and their nauseating affectations can be seen everywhere in life. They are pretending to have all those perfect beliefs and feelings and acting like the greatest people ever while they are really not. Satire is used by Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to depict how all kinds of people say one thing and do another in America in early 1800s, demonstrating that Mark Twain wants readers to be aware of the hypocrisy and ignorance of American society.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is considered a classic novel from the realism period of American Literature that accurately depicts social conventions from pre-civil war times. Despite this reputation as a historical lens of life on the Mississippi River, elements of blatant racism overshadow the regionalist and realist depictions. Huck Finn does not promote racism because all derogatory or racist remarks are presented as a window to life during the 1850s, in a satirical context, or to show Mark Twain's moral views on racism.
Satire is a writing technique used oftentimes as a way to criticize or mock something comically. Many writers utilize satire to reveal their perspectives on social issues without outright stating them. Mark Twain 's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn exhibits many examples of satire, all of which hint towards Twain 's opinions of the American society he lived in. Three particular societal norms Mark Twain uses satire to mock multiple times in his novel, include but are not limited to; racism and slavery, religion, and family feuds. There are multiple other instances for which satire is used, but these three are exceedingly prominent throughout the novel.
Mark Twain achieves his purpose of describing the natural world in the passage, “Miss Watson she kept … Tom Sawyer waiting for me” (2-3), in the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The purpose of this passage was to show how the night reflects the loneliness in Huckleberry’s life by using imagery, diction, and tone.
Huck Finn learns from the actions of people around him, what kind of a person he is going to be. He is both part of the society and an outlier of society, and as such he is given the opportunity to make his own decisions about what is right and what is wrong. There are two main groups of characters that help Huck on his journey to moral maturation. The first group consists of Widow Douglas, Miss Watson, and the judge. They portray society and strict adherence to rules laid out by authority. The second group consists of Pap, the King, and the Duke. They represent outliers of society who have chosen to alienate themselves from civilized life and follow no rules. While these characters all extremely important in Huck’s moral development, perhaps the most significant character is Jim, who is both a fatherly figure to Huck as well as his parallel as far as limited power and desire to escape. Even though by the end of the novel, Huck still does not want to be a part of society, he has made a many choices for himself concerning morality. Because Huck is allowed to live a civilized life with the Widow Douglas, he is not alienated like his father, who effectively hates civilization because he cannot be a part of it. He is not treated like a total outsider and does not feel ignorant or left behind. On the other hand, because he does not start out being a true member of the society, he is able to think for himself and dismiss the rules authority figures say are correct. By the end of the novel, Huck is no longer a slave to the rules of authority, nor is he an ignorant outsider who looks out only for himself. This shows Huck’s moral and psychological development, rendering the description of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” as a picaresq...
“The situation of the orphan is truly the worst, you’re a child, powerless, with no protectors or guides. It’s the most vulnerable position you can be in, to see someone overcome those odds tells us something about the human spirit. They are often depicted as the kindest or most clever of characters.” Michelle Boisseau describes how important these types of characters are. In a Sunday Times article, she states that a lot of the stories and novels are considered to be apologues about orphans becoming the hero of the book. Huck’s story is quite like this subject. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel written by Mark Twain, it’s about a boy named Huckleberry Finn, who sets out on a journey to discover his own truth about living free in nature, rather than becoming civilized in a racist and ignorant society. Mark Twain implies that Huck Finn resembles more of what he believes is right rather than what society surmises from him. Twain reveals this through the themes of satire, racism, and hero’s journey, which he uses constantly through out the book.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is an immensely realistic novel, revealing how a child's morals and actions clash with those of the society around him. Twain shows realism in almost every aspect of his writing; the description of the setting, that of the characters, and even the way characters speak. Twain also satirizes many of the foundations of that society. Showing the hypocrisy of people involved in education, religion, and romanticism through absurd, yet very real examples. Most importantly, Twain shows the way Huckleberry's moral beliefs form amidst a time of uncertainty in his life.