Deception In Huckleberry Finn

Jiwon Baek

Mr. Butler

English 2 Honors

12 April 2023

Huckleberry Finn Written Analysis

André Malraux, a French novelist, posited that men are “not what he thinks he is” but rather “what he hides.” American writer Mark Twain would agree, and in his picaresque novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he develops the theme of deception. Through the lies of the main character, Huckleberry Finn, and the antagonists, the King and the Duke, Twain aims to criticize the duplicity of the American people, who claimed to value human rights, in the late 19th century.

Twain intends to expose his society’s bluff through the protagonist and his demeanor toward a runaway slave. Huck Finn lies to many passersby during his journey down the Mississippi River

The Duke and the King take advantage of every opportunity they come across. For example, they impersonate Peter Wilks’ brothers once they discovered that Peter was “pretty well off” and “left three or four thousand in cash” when he died (Chapter 24). The con men mourn for someone they have never met and win the townspeople over. They “[gather] around and [sympathize] with” the con men, and Huck becomes “ashamed of the human race” (Chapter 24). Like the con artists, former slaveholders in the late 19th century often tried to justify the possession of slaves. They used unjust excuses to maintain the system supporting the oppression of African Americans. The Wilks sisters and the townspeople’s naïveté towards the Duke and the King’s calculated fraud help Twain’s readers acknowledge the atrocities African Americans faced in his society. Some may argue that the former slaveholders believed their actions were virtuous and that Twain's portrayal of them using the con men's intentional selfishness is inaccurate in those terms. But that was Twain's intention. The inherent racism exhibited by the people is the subject of his criticism. The problem was the people’s ingrained belief that African Americans and other people of color were not as important as the white people of America. Twain emphasizes that America promoted equality for all but engaged in practices that incited segregation and further