How Does Mark Twain Use Satire In Huckleberry Finn

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Twain’s Use of Satire in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
All throughout history, society has suffered from an extreme lack of insight; most people are unconscious to the skill of self-examination and, thus, have an inability to discover and accordingly mend the flaws within themselves. Oftentimes, they habitually ignore their faults until they forget that they exist altogether. This deficit of awareness has lead to a society with a considerable amount of faults and a minuscule number of people to which are mindful of these faults. As a result, authors and entertainers frequently use satire to mock society and expose the vices that people are so often oblivious to. For example, in the novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain uses several …show more content…

In one instance, two unconvincing con-men, the King and the Duke, decide to impersonate the grieving brothers of a recently deceased man, Peter Wilks, in order to steal his fortune. Their facade goes undisputed until a family friend to the Wilkses, Dr. Robinson, begins to challenge their fraudulent behavior.
‘Keep your hands off me!’ says the doctor. ‘You talk like an Englishman, don’t you? It’s the worst imitation I ever heard. You Peter Wilks’s brother! You're a fraud, that’s what you are!’ Well, how they all took on! They crowded around the doctor and tried to quiet him down, and tried to explain to him and tell him how Harvey’s showed in forty different ways that he was Harvey, and knowed everybody by name, and the names of the very dogs, and begged and begged him not to hurt Harvey’s feelings. (Twain 165).
Twain paints society as being a majority of foolish, oblivious people. This occasion is only one of the many in which Twain mocks society, attempting to show his readers an unkind reflection of what they truly are: unquestioning and trusting to the point of naivety. Moreover, through his depiction of the townspeople's rebuke of Dr. Robinson rationale, he demonstrates the way that individuals actively reject reason. How they, even when presented with logic, inevitably succumb to …show more content…

Throughout the novel, Huck Finn struggles with his conscience; he believes God will punish him for helping a runaway slave. Eventually, he breaks down and writes a letter to Miss Watson, informing her of Jim’s location. Before sending this letter, however, Huck reflects on the many times Jim has been kind to him, and begins to have second thoughts about turning him in. Huck states, “I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him [Jim], only the other kind...It was a close place I took it [the letter] up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling because I got to decide forever betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied it a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then I says to myself: ‘All right, then I’ll go to hell’—and tore it up.” (Twain 205). Society has misguided Huck Finn, making him feel as though it is blasphemous to aid a runaway slave. He is convinced that he's sinning by refusing to turn Jim in, nevertheless, the reader can clearly recognize that Huck is doing the right thing. Through this illustration, Twain emphasizes that, although Christians typically consider themselves to be very principled people, they often support slavery, a practice that is obviously

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