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The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn Satire Analysis

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Satire is one of the most eminent techniques that writers use to criticize a societal concept that they deem a flaw. Perhaps one of the greatest satirists, Mark Twain constantly denounces certain flaws about society in his writing. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain satirizes gullibility, hypocrisy, and mob mentality through the actions and thoughts of Huck and the other characters. In chapters one through eight, Twain satirizes superstition and the gullibility that comes along with it to prove that superstitions are foolish and unbelievable. Jim is the definition of a superstitious person. When Huck wanted to know about his father, Jim took a hairball with “a spirit inside of it” and performed a ritual by saying “something over …show more content…

At the beginning of chapter 17, Huck describes the Grangerford household. According to Huck, the house “[is] so nice and [has] so much style” that it resembles the “houses in town” (99). To Huck, the Grangerford house was an exquisite building with beautiful, minute details. While the house may seem classy to Huck, it is nothing more than average. The Grangerfords are hillbillies that come off as aristocrats to the small town boy who is used to less than adequate furnishings. The family is hypocritical in that they try to impress Huck with their property, but the property really is not as exquisite as it seems. As aforementioned, the Grangerfords seem to be a classy family, but are caught up in a feud with the Shepherdsons. Both families “want to kill” each other “on account of the feud” (107), but nobody can remember what “the trouble [was] about” (108). The families have been fighting for years, continuously killing one another over an issue that no one can remember. Their actions are hypocritical because they are both classy families, but they behave like children. The Grangerfords choose to be perceived as the perfect family, but their clash with the Shepherdsons deceives that perception. While Huck is staying with the Grangerfords, they all go to church on Sunday. Ironically, “the men [take] their guns” and the sermon is “all

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The Grangerfords and Pap are two of the characters who are utilized by Twain to denounce edified society. Twain utilizes parody to express his conviction that "acculturated" society is neither good, moral, nor civilized.   Exaggeration, stereotyping, and incongruity are utilized all through the story to satirize and to uncover the Grangerfords as the run of the mill southern blue-bloods and pap as the regular plastered "white junk." After a ferryboat mischance, Huck appears to lose his slave partner Jim subsequent to coming shorewards. Huck then is acquainted with Buck Grangerford (about the same age as Huck) and is permitted to stay in the Grangerford family.

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The chapters begin with Huck Finn on the porch of the Grangerford’s, where he introduces himself as George Jaxon, and they question him and invite him in cautiously with guns ready to fire in case he is a Sheperdson. Huck meets Buck who tells him a riddle, though Huck does not understand the concept of riddles, and that he must stay with Buck and they will have great fun. Meanwhile, Huck conceives a detailed story to tell how he was orphaned. The Grangerford's offer Huck to stay there as long as he likes at the comfortable and kind home. Buck admires the warmhearted Colonel Grangerford and his beautiful children; Bob, Tom, Charlotte, Sophia, and Buck.

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Smiley, an author of many books and magazine essays, writes her own criticism of Huckleberry Finn, “Say It Ain’t So, Huck”. Smiley has very strong arguments as she compares her own opinions and backs them up with Twain’s words from the book. Smiley argues that Twains real meaning behind the book is based off of racism. Twain never allows Jim to become a real human, as Jim will always be a slave whether he knows it or not. Although Huck and Jim end up creating a very strong relationship like brothers, Smiley believes that “Twain thinks that Hucks affection is a good enough reward for Jim” (Smiley 460).

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While the 1840s was obviously a period with a culture of racism, that racism was paired with an enormous religious culture. This time period comes at the end of the Second Great Awakening, a Protestant revival movement that swept the country, pushing for strong religious morality to prepare for the second coming of Christ. While Huck is with the Widow, he gets a different sort of education. The Widow and her sister, Miss Watson, are wealthy, proper and intensely religious, irreconcilable with Pap. Huck describes living in the Widow’s house, “She worked me middling hard for about an hour [with a spelling book]…Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety.

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Suddenly, Huck’s eyes are opened to the shortcomings of people he was previously blind to. Huck reaches the pinnacle of his moral development when he decides that Jim is worth going to hell for, no matter what society may think about a slave’s worth. After much internal turmoil, he decides, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” (Twain 215). This is a significant point in his changing perception of what is “sivilized”, as he finally decides that the ideals he has been taught are truly not worth it.

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Huck sees the Grangerfords as rich people, but in reality the just make themselves look richer than they really are. Huck doesn’t see that the things they have are goty and in reality are cheap. Huck describes some things he sees as, ” And there was nice split-bottom chairs, and perfectly sound, too-not bagged down in the middle and busted, like an old basket. ”(101)

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The progression of morality from the stark divide between right and wrong over the past twenty five hundred years into the highly variegated moral spectrum that is used today is the result of the division of ethics into seven moral prisms. The complexity of this moral spectrum deals with issues of duty, compassion, community, happiness, virtue, and self. This brings to light the moral permissibility of lying, when lying becomes the most intuitively moral option. Mark Twain, throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, blurs the lines between right and wrong; actively utilizing the moral spectrum that was not widely recognized until close to fifty years later. During Huck Finn’s adventures, he constantly runs into moral conflict; many of

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This way of thinking would change for Huck during his Transformation phase at the family shootout. One day while walking in the woods, Huck stumbles upon Buck and another 19 year old Grangerford in a shooting against the Shepherdsons. Huck, hiding in a tree, sees both Grangerfords die, deeply disturbing him. He says “I wished I hadn’t ever come ashore that night, to see such things. I ain’t ever going to get shut of them - lots of times I dream about them”

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Mark Twain uses satire to portray different issues that were going on during the time period. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, author Mark Twain uses Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer to represent romanticism and realism. Doing so formed the characters into two drastically different persons. Mark Twain uses satirical elements to contrast the two main characters in their personalities and views. Tom Sawyer is a child who is blinded with fictional literature and the worlds view on slaves.

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Throughout the rest of Huck 's journey he continues to meet people along the way that believe themselves to be good civilized people but they all contradict that in some way. The Grangerford 's are in a murdering feud with another family, the Phelps own slaves and are trying to get a reward for Jim, the townspeople that feather and tar the Duke and King without a trial, the execution of Boggs, even the Widow tells Huck not to smoke but takes snuff herself. Huck spends a large amount of time in the book pondering over how to be good and do the right things, and at the end of the book when he decides to go West and leave it all behind he has finally realized that he 's not the one that 's bad, society is. Huck heads back out into the world not for more adventure, but to get away from

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Hypocricy and Blind Faith Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn took place in the eighteen hundreds when religion and reputation were dominant in peoples everyday lives. It was very rare for someone to believe something different than everyone else. In Twain 's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Tom Sawyer and Huck appear to be very different, but their actions, descriptions, and dialogue bring them together to symbolize society in order to show the blind conformity and hypocrisy that humans often display.

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Mark Twain's Use of Satire in Huckleberry Finn Throughout his pieces of literature, the famous American author Mark Twain portrays his personal views of society using satire and irony in his stories. He makes fun of broken parts in the American society relentlessly and makes sure the readers understand how outrageous some acts were during the early-to-mid 1800s. Twain seems to target specific aspects in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn such as how young people could be conflicted between morality and legality, the loss of self-respect for money, and the effects of herd mentality. He has an interesting approach at giving the reader insight, but his main ideas for the theme shine through and are clearly depicted.

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The portrayal of Jim has been criticized by many as rude and comical; however, these criticisms only examine his face value. Jim, despite his status as the butt of many jokes, proves to be an intelligent, morally grounded friend and father figure to Huck. Jim, unlike Col. Grangerford, is not gilded, but golden. The content of Jim’s words draws sharp contrast to his discombobulated speech.

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