How Does Mark Twain Use Satire

Satire is “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices.” Satire is used to mock the behaviors or ideas of others, and it is very hard to blend it into any writing so it must be discovered by reading in between the lines. Mark Twain used satire heavily in his works. He was sarcastic and witty, and it is very apparent in his work that he did not necessarily agree with many ideas of his time. If he had written exactly what he thought about society, his books probably would not have been published. By using satire, Twain was able to successfully morph his thoughts into sentences that had to be decrypted to get the full meaning. Throughout Huck Finn, Mark Twain uses satire to point out the

hypocrisy of the people of that time period.
Mark Twain was not a fan of the government during his time. In order to make social commentary on the government in his stories, he makes Huck unbiased. Because of that, it is easier to understand the hypocrisy of the people around him, since both sides are laid out in front of the reader to make the connection. Many of the people in Huck’s life were a part of white society, and they tried to make changes in Huck’s life that would be considered good intentions, except it did not always turn out to be good for him. A short time after Huck found out his dad was back in town, Judge Thatcher and Widow Douglas went to the court to fight for custody over Huck. “The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away from him and let one of them be my guardian… Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit…” (Twain 19). The reason the judge and the widow had to quit was because there was a new judge in town, who, rather than separating a boy and his abusive father, wanted to keep them together because he did not want to be involved. Twain points out the hypocrisy of the government in this passage because the new judge was supposed to be working for the law and improving the quality of life for Americans. Instead, he leaves Huck with his abusive father because it is easier than getting involved in Huck’s life. The ignorance of the new judge made things worse for Huck, because his rejection of Judge Thatcher and the Widow Douglas’ application for custody of Huck, “... pleased the old man till he couldn’t rest,” (Twain 19). Huck’s father began to get more harsh with Huck, seemingly to prove his “ownership” of Huck. The ignorant judge is just one of the endless examples of the hypocrisy of government in Huck Finn.
Mark Twain also points out the double standards of Christianity when it comes to being selfish and vice versa.

When the Widow Douglas is talking to Huck about the “good” place and the “bad” place, or Heaven and Hell, she told him that, “...she was going to live so as to go to the good place,” (Twain 5). Later on, Huck tries praying, and is confused as to why he was not getting what he asked for. He ran to the Widow Douglas and asked her, and, “... she said the thing a body could get by praying for it was ‘spiritual gifts’... I must help other people, and do everything I could for other people… and never think about myself,” (Twain 14-15). This is obviously hypocritical because the Widow Douglas gives Huck a scolding, saying how he needs to pray for other people. However, Twain thinks that Christians are obsessed with going to the “good” place, so therefore do not care about other people, but instead whether or not they will be sent to Heaven. (End the

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The most important thing Twain identifies as hypocrisy are the supposedly civilized members of society when it comes to racism.

When Huck meets Uncle Silas and Aunt Sally, he says he has to go, but they insist for him to stay. “It’s a long, dusty three mile, and we can’t let you walk. And Besides, I’ve already told ‘em to put on another plate when I see you coming,” (Twain 277). The Phelps believe that they are civilized, and it is true, in a way. But on the other hand, Twain points out that they are also racist. By using “‘em” to refer to the slaves that they own, Twain shows that these people are still racist. They are saying they cannot let Huck leave because they are civilized and therefore are obligated to take care of them, yet here they are, forcing other people to do chores for them and treating them as objects. When Huck tries to explain why he is late to the farm, he says, “‘We blowed out a cylinder head.’ ‘Good gracious! anybody hurt?’ ‘No'm. Killed a nigger.’ ‘Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt,’” (Twain 140). The key word in this passage is “people”. Because Aunt Sally used “people” to talk about white people, she is objectifying slaves, which proves her hypocrisy. It does not matter how nice she is to white people, because she is ignorant towards people of color and that is what counts. In civilized society, it was simple to accept the values it held, since all the people who had a say were part of white society, and Mark Twain does a

wonderful job at pinpointing the hypocrisy in that.
In conclusion, the hypocrisy in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was not unveiled by simply stating the wrongdoings of society, but instead mocking them. Twain laughed at these characters so that the reader understood what was wrong with the actions they made. By using this tactic, Twain made sure only the intelligent readers of his novels would understand his satire.