Mark Twain uses his novel the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to exaggerate and make fun of the many problems facing American society. Twain uses many of the characters in his novel to express satire. Some of the major views of society that Twain attacks are religion, slavery, and human nature itself. Religion is one of the main victims of Twain’s satire. The satire is visible when the Widow Douglas tells Huck about Moses. It is obvious that Huck does not care to know when Huck states, “Here she was a-bothering about moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, being gone, you see…” Later in the novel Huck realizes that prayer has never done anything good for him and he can not see that it has done anything for many others either.
Through Huck, Twain is able to attack the blind faith that civilized society places towards religion. The King and the Duke are perfect people for Twain to express his satire. They are frauds who make their money by ripping people off. Twain goes on to satirize human nature through the town’s reaction to the Royal Nonesuch with the King and the Duke. Instead of running the frauds out of town as soon as they realized they were being robbed, the towns people let them stay and encouraged others to go see the show as well so that they would not be the only ones taken in by fraud. At this point Twain exaggerates the distance people will go so that they will not be the only ones fooled. However, when the King and Duke are finally caught they pay for their sins by being tarred and feathered.
The Term Paper on Mark Twain’s Humorous Satire in Running for Governor
Abstract: Mark Twain, a mastermind of humor and realism, is seen as a giant in world literature. His humorous satire had great impact on the following men of letters; critics also attached significant importance to it and put forward various interpretations. Noticeably, his humor? ous satire finds full expression in his famous short story, Running for Governor. In it, with humor and satire, he ...
Even though Huck knew the King and Duke were frauds, he still felt sympathy for them, “It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.” Through the actions taken by the towns people, Twain shows that criminals and crooks are not the only ones that can be cruel. The towns people who consider themselves to be civilized and oppose to any type of cruelty, commit a cruel act themselves. Twain demonstrates how a society that sees themselves as civilized can display such irresponsible behavior. Society’s cruelty is visible again when the man with Packard says “He’ll be drownded, and won’t have nobody to blame for it but his own self. I reckon that’s a considerable sight better’n killin’ of him. I’m unfavorable to killin’ a man as long as you can git aroun’ it; it ain’t good sense, it ain’t good morals.
Ain’t I right?” He makes this statement about the other man they have lying in the boat. Packard’s companion is so mislead that he thinks it a lesser crime to watch and allow a man to drown than to just go ahead and kill him. Twain is once again satirizing the idiocy and cruelty of society. There were also many gullible people in the novel. The most gullible would have to be the Wilks girls. They believed that the King and Duke were actually their uncles, even after Doc Robinson told them otherwise and even tried to prove it to them. Twain is satirizing the fact that some people fail to listen and they are fooled because they do fail to listen when someone is trying to help them.
Twain also uses satire to attack how fake civilized people can be. Twain expresses his feelings about fakes through the words of Huck Finn. And every woman, nearly, went up to the girls, without saying a word, and kissed them, solemn, on the forehead, and then put their hand on their head, and looked up towards the sky, with the tears running down, and then busted out and went off sobbing and swabbing, and give the next woman a show. I never see anything so disgusting. Huck could not stand to see the people being so fake, and it made him sick to think that all the women were putting on a sob act for each other. When Huck sneaks away to play with Tom Sawyer and his friends, the boys start a gang and decide that one of the things they will do is kidnap people and hold them for ransom.
The Essay on The Scream Society And The Common Man
Existentialist philosophy at first may appear to be at odds with the everyday world; however, existentialism has some very real applications in the context of society as opposed to the context of existence. Society gives us a role in life, something to give our lives meaning, but what happens when we look too closely at our role and reconsider it? What happens when we ask, why? The Scream by ...
Since the boys do not know what the word ransom means they discover that they can not do that. Without a doubt all the boys believe Toms definition of ransom when he says, But peraps if we keep them till theyre ransomed, it means to keep them till theyre dead. In this part of the novel, Twain uses satire to show that even though something may be truly wrong, if civilization or society believes it to be true, then it will be believed to be true by everyone else as well. Twain could have been hinting towards the way people feel about slavery in this instance of satire. Slavery was wrong but because it was accepted by everyone else in society, it was believed to be ok. Mark Twain uses the boy, Huck, and the run away slave, Jim, to not only tell a story but to also express his feelings as to what he believed were the problems facing society.
Overall satire is the key tool that Twain uses to demonstrate the problems that society faced. Twain makes good use of satire to make fun of and exaggerate American society. Through his use of satire Twain turned and adventure down a river into an exploration of the problems society, especially civilized society, faced..
