In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain uses Huck’s keen observations of the world around him to address and attack a variety of societal problems, the most problematic of which is the general state of man within a so-called civilized society. The town of Bricksville, Arkansas and the incident that involves two of its citizens, Boggs and Sherburn, is just one of many examples within the novel that illustrate the power of Huck’s observations and Twain’s response to the poor state of humanity. While the portrayal of Colonel Sherburn is easy to dismiss as just another satire of a Southern gentleman, Sherburn and his speech also serve another purpose, namely to deliver Twain’s visceral attack on the cowardice of man.
The reader is
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The hogs and men are presented with images of mud further reinforcing the portrayal of a backwards society. For example, “you’d see a muddy sow and a litter of pigs come lazing along the street… And she’d stretch out, and shut her eyes… and looked as happy as if she was on salary” (Twain 129). The hogs and their ways are a metaphor for the lazy citizens of Bricksville who do not do an honest day’s work. While at first this metaphor may appear unfair, Huck’s disgust with the town makes more sense when he reveals the sadistic nature of its lazy inhabitants. “There couldn’t anything wake them up all over, and make them happy all over, like a dogfight – unless it might be putting turpentine on a stray dog and setting fire to him, or tying a tin pan to this tail and see him run himself to death” (Twain 129). Given the natural antagonism between pigs and dogs, the sentence reinforces the idea that the hogs are a metaphor for the population of Bricksville. However, the sentence also serves to explain Huck’s disdain toward the townspeople who seem to only come out of their slothful state when there is an opportunity for bloodlust directed at someone