The Bible According To Huck Finn Analysis

Mark Twain is popular for his work of satirizing common aspects of life, such as romance novels, family feuds, and the widely controversial topics, religion, and morality. Mark Twain criticizes the excess of religion blatantly; he is against traditional rites and often attacks conventional customs where followers of religion often practice.He is also cynical of certain morals and how senseless those “morals” can be sometimes. Twain portrays how hypocritical religion and morality can be and how they contradict conventional belief systems in society. His point of view can be displayed in characters from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in a compilation of essays written by Twain tilted “The Bible According to Mark Twain” and how Twain narrates

Mrs. Watson is a devout Christian who is an avid reader of the Bible and firm on its sayings. She is perceived as a faithful woman to Christianity. However, albeit her steadfastness to religion, she’s also been manipulated by society into believing slavery is acceptable. When Mrs.Watson was with Huck, she started to speak to him about increasing prayer. “Miss Watson 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.(Twain 14) This example is a demonstration of her devotion to religion. Mrs.Watson, however, owns a slave, cruelly separating him from his family which is very hypocritical considering the fact she’s a Christian. This practice goes against the Christian morals and it contradicts her attempt to “free” Huck from his abusive father. Twain argues how the duplicity of this situation shows how hypocritical religion can be. Widow Douglas also shows how she has double standards towards religion when we learn that she chews tobacco. Huck earlier was chastised for chewing tobacco, however, later on, we learn she also chews tobacco. “Pretty soon I wanted to smoke and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn’t. She said it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean, and I must try not to do it anymore.... And she took snuff, too; of course that was alright, because she has done it

For example, Huck’s father Pap, a poor, alcoholic, uneducated white man, goes on a tirade, attacking a black professor. “There was a free nigger there from Ohio — a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too….They said he was a p’fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything...They said he could VOTE when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was ’lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn’t too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where they’d let that nigger vote...(Twain 40). Even though Pap is a hateful, penniless man with absolutely no value system, he believes he is still superior because he’s “white”. The professor is educated,, wealthy and well dressed, yet Pap still believes he is better than him due to his racial prejudice. We can see how hypocritical Pap is being towards morality. Another example can be demonstrated by the Duke and the King when they found “their” money stolen. Previously the Duke and King had defrauded and stole mass amounts of money, then proceeded to hide it under a bed. However, upon discovering that their money was stolen, they immediately come to the conclusion that the niggers stole it.”because Mary Jane’ll be in mourning from this out; and first you