Dane Brazinski
Mrs. Manatos
English II-Blue
27 October 2014
Twain’s Love of Satire
“People say satire is dead. It's not dead; it's alive and living in the White House.” This humorous quote is by none the other then Robin Williams. A legacy that will last my lifetime and many others. The novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a staple of American literature in the past and forms modern literature to this day. Almost every school, around the nation, reads this book each year. Even Ernest Hemingway praises, “It’s the best book we’ve had.” In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, satire is present in the Widow Douglas, the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons feud, and Colonel Sherburn.
In the beginning of the novel, satire is present in the Widow Douglas. She makes Huck go to church and teaches him bible verses. When yelling at Huck for wanting to smoke, Huck states that, “she took snuff too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself” (4). This hypocritical statement allows Twain to point out the South’s satire and how hypocritical the Widow Douglas
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After Sherburn kills Boggs, the townspeople all agree Sherburn should be lynched. But when the mob confronts Sherburn at his house, Sherburn comes out with a shotgun and says, “The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's what an army is—a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it is beneath pitifulness” (123). Twain satirizes the common “bandwagon” action people, even today, do. Follow the crowd despite what they believe. Bandwagoning is a common term used today in sports. Your team is losing so you just “bandwagon” (follow the crowd) on to the winning team and root for them. Back then, they probably called it “jumping ships.” The mob then realizes that nobody actually wants to lynch Sherburn and goes