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How Does Twain Use Satire In Huckleberry Finn

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In his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, acclaimed author, Mark Twain, satirizes the moral conditioning of society that justifies slavery and extreme racism in the South prior to the Civil War. Twain adopts a critical tone to expose how society is at fault in misleading people to conform to its so-called moral rules, rather than staying true to their values. Twain employs satirical devices including irony, stereotypes, and absurdity to ridicule the attitudes of Americans and the hypocrisy that exists among them. Twain utilizes irony to demonstrate that society’s teachings are unethical and tend to stray away from what is morally correct. Huck, a young adolescent, lives in a world where his conscience is heavily affected by civilization …show more content…

At the beginning of the novel, Twain depicts Jim as an African-American slave, who is a superstitious fool and falls for the silly tricks that Huck and Tom play on him, but becomes courageous, intelligent, and thoughtful. Twain presents Jim as a human being who has his own feelings and moral dignity, which he proves when he takes responsibility as Huck’s friend and father figure, and explains his plans to live independently with his family. Society trains Huck to think that white men are superior to black men, but throughout his adventures with Jim, he realizes that there is only a difference between being right and wrong, not black and white, and views both races as equal. Huck identifies himself as part of the black race, boldly asserting, “Well, if ever I struck anything like it, I’m a nigger.” (163) Huck would rather belong to an inferior yet ethical race than be a part of a superior but fake race. Twain criticizes The Duke and the King’s intentions to exemplify that they are white frauds, and are only concerned about profit. The Duke complains about how the King made a profit from slavery by selling Jim and claims, “That old fool had made a trade and got forty dollars.”, and Huck replies, “I wouldn’t shake my nigger, would I?—the only nigger I had in the world, and the only property.” (216) Twain’s excessive use of the derogatory term “nigger” emphasizes how whites regarded blacks as property, who were lesser than human beings. These stereotypes demonstrate society’s approval of slave ownership and discrimination against a minority or particular race, especially African-Americans, and prove that its teachings are

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In this very moment, Jim (a “nigger”) becomes a better father figure for Huck than his real father, who was a white man. Jim is better than almost any other person within the story, and he is a black man. However, Twain did use racial stereotypes in the story quite a bit (Chadwick). For example when he and Huck are

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Satire in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Satire is a tool that is used throughout the novel The adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, in order to critique religion, society, and its justification of slavery. During the time of slavery and quite a few years after that, black people were considered to not be “whole men” and were described as “immature, irresponsible, unintelligent, and physically strong.” (Race and Racism) What Twain did with his story was to comment on the duplicity of “the whole man”. The scene that will be focused on is found on page 51, when Huckleberry describes his life at the Widow Douglas's home, and it is said that in the evening Miss Watson would call their slaves into the house and pray before it was time retire for the evening.

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During Mark Twain’s historical fiction novel, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, Jim, a slave, takes a leap of faith for his own freedom. Twain reveals Jim’s truly noble beliefs and tells a story of a hardworking father who is not only set on freeing his own sons from slavery, but also Huck from his preconceived beliefs on equality. Twain wants to show that people of color aren't just shells of people, they are actual human beings. Twain shows Jim's journey as he changes from slave to Huck’s mentor and sacrifices a lot for Huck.

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Jim is a runaway slave owned by a white lady named Miss. Watson; while his partner during his adventures down the Mississippi River, Huck is a young boy raised in a slave-owning culture. Jim will have to struggle with Huck’s moral dilemma of whether or not to view Jim as an equal; Twain continues to set Jim

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Twain's Satire Through The Eyes of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain, the author of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, used satire in order to criticize and unmask certain topics, more specifically American society. In this novel, a young boy named Huckleberry Finn was thrown into a situation where he had to fend for himself but learned a lot on the journey. He went from living with Miss Watson, a widow, to living out on a boat with Jim, the widow's runaway slave, and two frauds who said they were a king and a duke. He faced many problems along the way but never resorted to violence when coming up with a plan or solution.

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In Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain used satire to ridicule different aspects of American society during that time. This satire allowed for a humorous take on major events through the eyes of the author. To start off, the family feud between the Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords represented the foolish behavior of the North and South during the Civil War. Next, Mark Twain mocked slavery and anyone who condones it, such as Miss Watson. Lastly, the fact that the towns people would rather blame a black man for the supposive death of Huckleberry then a white man.

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a novel that describes various American situations during the 1800s through the perspective of a young boy named Huckleberry Finn. This book narrates and focuses on the ‘adventures’ that Huck goes through with other characters. On his way down the Mississippi River, Huck meets new people, faces challenges, and makes up lies to cover himself and the people he meets. Although it may seem as a classical novel, it contains many instances in which satire was used to expose the characters by emphasizing their character and personality using irony and humor. Twain used satire to ultimately describe and make fun of the way that society behaved during the pre-Civil War period in the 1800s.

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Internal struggles and morality are popular topics and methods for continuing plot in literature. However, they are very rarely combined with satire. Mark Twain, in his American Realistic novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, utilizes Huck’s morality and crisis of conscience in order to satirize social institutions. Twain uses Huck’s morality to satirize reformers.

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Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a satire of the American society and human nature. Written during a period where hypocrisy was prevalent, the novel mocks the slavery, superstition, judicial system, family feuds, racism, ignorance, and the cruelty displayed by a majority of Americans. Twain used many of the characters and situations in the novel to represent pieces of the society he thought were ironic, and he did so in a humorous and hyperbolic manner. One major conflict in the novel that Twain uses for satire is when Pap, Huckleberry's father, reappears after a long abandonment and is angry at Huck for going to school. Pap's character is exaggeratedly used to symbolize illiterate, dead-beat, racist, white, wandering drunkards.

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In Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he uses satirical language to convey irony and humor in order to ridicule how nonsensical and hypocritical most people in the South were. Twain illustrates his purpose through the eyes of a young boy named Huckleberry Finn who goes through a series of events to prove how society attempts to taint the image between what is morally right & wrong and also to show the flaws in society. In the beginning of the novel, Twain uses irony to expose religious hypocrisy in the South through the use of his character Miss Watson. Huck notices this when he asks to smoke but is not allowed to even though “[Miss Watson] took snuff too [but] of course [it] [was] [alright] because she done it herself” (2).

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Mia Carley Thomas Butler English 2 Honors 06 April 2023 Hypocrisy of Morality Following the rambunctious and free-spirited Huckleberry Finn, the reader follows Finn into the antebellum South exploring his own youth, morality of himself and those around him. Twain’s book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, acts as an extension of the questioning of the morality of the time, particularly the brutal institution governing the South in the 19th century involving the physical and psycological captivity of slaves. Exemplified by the satirical practices and ethics, Twain mocks the characters to highlight the sanctimony of their principles.

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1403 Words | 6 Pages

The black man on the back porch is afraid of the rattle snake because it is bad luck, or the innocent little slave is quick to believe everything one tells them at the drop of the hat. These are just some of the many racist stereotypes of the 1840s. A character named Jim is the star African American whom Twain bestoys the mission of being the stereotypical black man to prove a point. He along with his much more pallor companion Huck go on exciting adventures that unfold the events which expose the racist conduct of the time. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain saturates his novel with potent images of acute racism severe enough as to create a satirical mien that exposes the absurdity of prejudice.

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In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain criticizes the roles of racism, religion, and society’s system of justice in the South during the 1800’s. More specifically, he criticizes how the injustice of slavery and racism is viewed as moral, how institutional religion is used more as a charade rather than a system of faith, and how society’s system of justice has the tendency to be biased and based on reacting to crimes instead of preventing them. Racism is an ingrained part of Southern society in the 19th century and is viewed by most Southerners as just. They believe blacks are a lesser race and shouldn’t be treated the same as whites are. This way of thinking is very prominent throughout the novel and is disapproved by Twain in several different scenes.

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In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the racist attitudes of the Deep South in the late 1800's are shown. Mark Twain portrays a runaway slave, Jim, as a racist caricature who does whatever is asked of him and exhibits little intelligence. The reader can initially see this through the use of the word "nigger" that is all throughout the book. In the modern 21st century this term is taken offensively, but in the 19th century this term was commonly used and Twain took advantage of it.

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The main difference is shown when Huck and Jim both run away from home, people consider Huck as a abused runaway boy from his father Pap and Jim is considered as a runaway slave, so therefore people feel pity on Huck and help him as much as they can as he belongs to a white society. For example people give him money and shelter to live. Whereas for Jim people take advantage to catch him and get the reward as announced. This clearly shows how Jim is being discriminated by the society. Not only through Jim’s character we get the concept of Mark twain’s pessimistic views on American society, he mostly mentioned many different characters to show each individual views on racism and how they

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