In his novel, The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain applies his thoughts upon societal hypocrisy by using the characters to convey their religious entitlement as a societal norm rather than focusing on the true moral teachings that Christianity implies. Throughout the book, Twain adopts a sentimental yet humorous tone to portray the characters’ ironic behavior towards biblical teachings and their reason for going completely against them.
Twain utilizes the treatment of religion as a moral entitlement to do wrong. As Huckleberry and Tom started their band of robbers, member Ben Rogers suggested Sunday as a day to rob, but everyone promptly disagreed due to it being the holy day of the week. Later in the book, the two prominent Southern families, Grangerfords and Sherperdsins both attend church, and both hear the same sermon about brotherly love and grace towards other, but totally ignore
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message’s literal meaning by causing a mass shootout in the countryside the day after in order to take family revenge against the marrying two members of the both their families. Twain’s use of travesty exposes the reality that both situations mistranslate the use of religion. Characters in the book treat Sunday, the day of worship and gratification to the Christian God, as a day in which they completely drop their sinful behavior and open their hearts to the teaching words of their God. However, through complete absurdity, these same members of the church find themselves committing unmoral behavior that the Bible activity criticizes outside of the church atmosphere. Even with the shootout in which members of both family find it “morally right” in killing the opposing family, both sides do not realize what bloodshed it causes to each other and how the Bible completely condemns it. This flip-flop in moral justification is the very item Twain is attempting to point to readers. Religion is not a flip-flop manner in which people do as they please, it is a lifelong commitment in morality. Throughout the book, religion is used to shame others for their transgressions, but ironically the person criticizing the other person’s faults is committing the same faults as the very person.
Twain pictures the widow as a diligent religious subject of Christianity. She reads the Bible, prays often, doing good service to the community by taking care of orphaned Huck, and comically mocks Huck for his sins by referencing the Holy Bible. However, Twain points out the situation irony at play. The widow herself grumbles through meal’s blessing when she asks Huck to be thankful for what he has, and snuffs tobacco when she tells Huckleberry it’s wrong to do. Twain wants to display this a prime example of religious hypocrisy through verbal irony. Huck isn’t the best person when it comes to behavior and the Widow prides herself in finding his faults in his moral sin, but fails to realize that she herself is the one who is sinful. By criticizing the other person, one should look into his life before pointing out the faults of other. Otherwise, the person is committing
hypocrisy. (Note: Should I add the example of the mob?) Twain points towards the title of a religious leader in which gives a person limitless power to preach or scam fellow spiritual seekers at their own pleasure. The Duke and the King both used fake identities as a recently converted Christian and pastor in order to gain financial support for their fraudulent moral cause. The King rips off hundreds as he pretends to be a disbanded pirate, forgiven of his sin. In this parody, he boldly proclaims his thankfulness to God and the movement in turning his life around and then boast of devoting his entire life bring God to the lives of his fellow pirates. The crowd believes him and kindly gives loads of money to his cause. Later, in wakes of being a pastor, he achieves thousands of dollars in gold by posing as a fake brother through careful words and a witful attitude. Even when the town’s doctor shouted wolf against the two’s identities and plainly listed out their faults, the community still put trust upon them being religious teachers and not scam men. Twain’s exaggeration of how these two could get away with their fake identities easily conveys the total respect towards religious leaders and how they could get away with easily reprehensible crimes. Might add: (This respect and total trust towards religious leaders shoves a blind eye community’s decision to find the person trustworthy) Twain satirizes characters religious entitlement as a societal norm as a way to twist the good moral sense of religion into a dark and evil purpose of satisfying one’s personal purpose. By using the exaggerated examples of irony and travesty of many pretentious religious subjects in the book, readers can relate how many of the situations actually relate to their very lives on making moral decision throughout life.
The chapters dealing with the Grangerford and Sheperdson feud allow Twain to satire aspects of civilized culture. The main aspect he satirizes is the feud itself. The Grangerfords being the representatives of civilization, Twain reveals the senseless brutality and needless slaughter involved in their arbitrary concept of honor. For Twain, such a feud goes against his common sense and anything that violated his common sense was crazy. The feud has gone on so long hat the people don’t even know why they are fighting; yet, embedded in the feud are artificial concepts of civilized behavior. For Example, Mr. Grangerford tells Buck that he shouldn’t shoot from behind the bush but he should step out into the road to kill a Sheperdson. Also there is a sense of irony because why would such a civilized family be in a feud that they can’t remember the origin of. Another aspect of it is the Grangeford’s use of hypocrisy. The Grangerfords were “church goers” and in one sermon given by Mr. Grangerford he speaks of brotherly love, this while feuding with a family for a reason they don’t even remember.
The act of Christian men and woman, such as in the Catholic faith, is often contradictory as to how they believe they should live their lives. In the book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain strikes a parallel between two feuding families, and the contradictory patterns of the Church they attend. This parallel is first grazed on when upon attempting to explain to Huck why the feud started, Buck Grangerford declares that "Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon and some of the other old people; but they don't know what the row was about in the first place" (Twain 108). From this it is evident that the two families have no idea what they are fighting about.
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...
In order for Huck to alienate himself from society and reveal the hypocrisy of society’s values. Twain uses the morals of the widow Douglas to insure Huck’s understanding of how contradicting these morals really are. “The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me” (Twain 1). It’s shown from this quote that the widow Douglas most truly believed that her moral values where the correct and civilized morals. But it wasn’t only the the widow Douglas who taught Huck, her sister Mrs. Watson taught Huck the ideas of Christianity and read stories from the Bible to him as well. They both tried to insure that Huck turn in to the what they believed was the civilized and religiously correct human being.
In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain illustrates several traits that are common in mankind. Among these traits are those that are listed in this essay. Through characters in the story Twain shows humanity's innate courageousness. He demonstrates that individuals many times lack the ability to reason well. Also, Twain displays the selfishness pervasive in society. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, many aspects of the human race are depicted, and it is for this reason that this story has been, and will remain, a classic for the ages.
Society establishes their own rules of morality, but would they be accepted in these days?
Mark Twain applies humor in the various episodes throughout the book to keep the reader laughing and make the story interesting. The first humorous episode occurs when Huck Finn astonishes Jim with stories of kings. Jim had only heard of King Solomon, whom he considers a fool for wanting to chop a baby in half and adds, Yit dey say Sollermun de wises?man dat ever live? I doan?take no stock in dat (75). Next, the author introduces the Grangerfords as Huck goes ashore and unexpectedly encounters this family. Huck learns about a feud occurring between the two biggest families in town: the Grangerfords and the Sheperdsons. When Huck asks Buck about the feud, Buck replies, 搾... a feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other man抯 brother kills him; then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the cousins chip in ?and by and by everybody抯 killed off, and there ain抰 no more feud挃 (105). A duel breaks out one day between the families and Huck leaves town, heading for the river where he rejoins Jim, and they continue down the Mississippi. Another humorous episode appears n the novel on the Phelps plantation. Huck learns that the king has sold Jim to the Phelps family, relatives of Tom Sawyer. The Phelps family mistakes Huck for Tom Sawyer. When Tom meets with Aunt Sally, he ?.. [reaches] over and [kisses] Aunt Sally on the mouth?(219) This comes as a surprises to her and Tom explains that he 揫thinks] [she] [likes] it?(219) Later, Huck runs into Tom on the way into town and the two make up another story about their identities. The two then devise a plan to rescue Jim. They use Jim as a prisoner and make him go through jail escaping clich閟.
Huck Finn, a narcissistic and unreliable young boy, slowly morphs into a courteous figure of respect and selflessness. After Pap abducts the young and civilized Huck, Huck descends into his old habits of lies and half-truths. However, upon helping a runaway slave escape, Huck regains morality and a sense of purpose. Throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck lies to characters, casting the authenticity of the story into doubt but illustrating Huck’s gradual rejection of lying for himself and a shift towards lying for others.
This essay will analyze the themes of religion, slavery, and democracy in the book Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. By exploring these themes that lie behind the book’s veneer, we can understand Twain’s objective for writing this book.
In the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain uses mockery to point out the social issues that were current during his time. Throughout the text, Mark Twain utilizes the main character Huckleberry as a means of voicing his own opinion on problems in social institutions in a jokingly manner; this is called satire. Hypocrisy in religion is one example of satire found in the novel. People's quickness to believe and stupidity are others as well.
Back in World War 2, the USA agreed that they would not sell arms to Great Britain; however, they quickly turned around and sold guns and other arms to Great Britain. In the passage where Buck explains his family feud with the Shepherdsons, through the voice of Buck Mark Twain describes the hypocrisy of human society while Buck tries to explain what is happening between his family and the Shepherdsons family. In the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Twain writes about the family feud between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons in which Twain examines the hypocrisy of human society by using irony and dialect.
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, the topic of religion is touched upon frequently. Many characters such as Miss Watson, the Widow Douglass, and the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons consider themselves religious people. They attend church and claim to live by the words of the Bible. However many of them do not practice what they preach. Throughout the novel, Huck realizes some of the flaws in their religious practices, and he begins to disagree with their beliefs. Twain expresses his rejection of religion by exploring the hypocrisy of the religious principles enforced in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
“Good satire comes from anger. It comes from a sense of injustice, that there are wrongs in the world that need to be fixed.” (Carl Hiaasen) Mark Twain uses the literary device known as satire in the classic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, to expose the irrational views of society during the time of slavery, through humor. Huck exclaiming that he does not want to go back to live with Widow Douglass, Jim explaining how those who have less cherish their belonging more than those who have more, and the cruelty of the white men toward Jim, show how Mark Twain was showing the ugly side of society to the readers with the use of satire and irony. Society in Huckleberry Finn not only outcasted people because of the color of their skin,
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.
In Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain satirizes many problems in white society during the period leading to the Civil War. Twain highlights a number of institutions in southern white society and emphasizes how much of these institutions stem from the many traditions and customs that Huck is forced to grow up believing. Unlike Huck, many people do not question these traditions and customs, and grow up believing these ideas that contradict reasonable thought. One of these harmful institutions that Twain denounces is Christianity, which he believes is harming society by stripping self consciousness and individuality from those who follow it. Twain satirizes the followers of Christianity by comparing