Examples Of Satire In Huckleberry Finn

Throughout Huckleberry Finn, the author Mark Twain showcases his beliefs about religion through satire and satirical properties. Mark Twain himself was a Christian, so his exposure of satire to religion wasn't out of disrespect. He satirizes throughout the book the fact that many people during the 1800’s did not practice what they preach. Instead, they were doing it for show. He also satirizes religion to show how hypocritical and absurd it could be.

Huck is first taken in by two very nice white ladies who have a nice house and seems to be happy life, Miss Watson and the Widow Douglas. These two seems to be fairly religious, base on what Huck illustrates to us. “When you get to the table you couldn’t go straight to eating, but you had to wait

After Miss Watson cleaned off Hucks dirty clothes, “She took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it.But it warn’t so. I tied it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. it warn’t any good to me without hooks”(10-11) It is a well known fact that prayer is a part of the Christian religion. Twain uses this situation to convey a parody of Christian prayer and prayer antics. Christianity stresses that it is important to pray so you can communicate and connect with God on a deeper level. Twain is satirizing how Christians can sometimes pray for things so superficial, yet they claim they are connecting with

As Miss Watson was explaining heaven and hell to Huck, he ponders, “Now she has got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn’t think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together”(3). Huck does not want to go to the “good place” because Miss Watson is there but would go to the “bad place” because Tom is going to be there. Exaggeration is being used here. It is is putting a choice where there usually isn’t one. Although there is a true path to follow in this religion, people tend to interpret and reinterpret it until the point to where they get the standards of religion to standards that they can deal with/what they want them to be. This is also hypocritical since Christianity claims that you should love God and follow his ways and find your path to heaven, yet followers of Christianity are bending and folding the rules to fit their