Exploring Satire and Hypocrisy in Huckleberry Finn

Satire in Huckleberry Finn 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.

Outwardly, the politicians seem love peace and uphold justice but on the sly, they are keeping scheming and may furtively deride the common people who are deceived by them. Huck runs to Judge Thatcher’s

But when Huck says he wants to give the money to Judge Thatcher, he looks confused and concerned about Huck. “‘Well, I’m puzzled. Is something the matter?’”(Twain 16) Without even a little rejection, he accepts it and pretends to buy it from Huck with only one dollar to show how considerate and virtuous he is. If he really cares for Huck instead of the money, he can totally refuse Huck’s request and come up with a better idea to help Huck out of trouble. Similarly, Mark Twain also mocks Henry through Huck’s talk with Jim on the boat. If some left money around Henry, “he collared it”(Twain 154). If Henry contracted to do a business and got paid, and the person didn’t keep a close watch on him, “he always done the other thing”(Twain 154). As soon as Henry opened his mouth, “he’s lose a lie every time”(Twain 154). However, it was the same person who signed the Declaration of Independence. It’s hard to believe that such an avid and treacherous man was truly fighting for freedom of Americans. He didn’t care about other people at all and all he cared was how much benefit he could gain by doing that. Unlike Judge Thatcher and Henry who already benefited financially, the new judge in the court is seeking for some praiseworthy achievement. Without any investigation of Huck’s

Tom Sawyer thought up a robbery game and shared it with all his friends. But since “it would be wicked to do it [rob and kill people] on Sunday”(Twain 10), they decided to choose another day. To these naive children, it is only Sunday that they should virtuous and on the other days, they can be as evil as they want. In the same way, the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons went to church and they “took their guns along, and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall”(Twain 109), ready to kill each other for every second. It is ridiculous that the feud between two families had been on for nearly thirty years while “everybody said it was a good sermon” which was all about brotherly love and free grace. The irony was that just on the second day, so many people were killed during a fight. Not only those truculent civilized Christian, but also benign townspeople like Miss Watson goes against the morality of religion. “Dat’s Miss Watson - she pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she alwuz said she wouldn’t sell me down to Orleans”(Twain 43). Miss Watson never treats Jim as a person and enslaves him like a cattle all the time. Christianity teaches them to love and help each other and slavery obviously runs counter to it. Furthermore, religion can sometimes be used to seize