Examples Of Satire In Huckleberry Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain is a tremendous instance of a satire that Twain uses to mock different aspects of the society that he doesn't like. The novel has many adventures see through the eyes of, Huckleberry Finn, a disorderly young boy, and Jim, who is a runaway slave. In the novel, Twain utilizes Huck to satirize the god-fearing hypocrites, white people's stereotypes, and credulity both to entertain the reader and to make the us conscious of the social problems of that time period.
One of the main victims of Twain's satire is belief in a higher power. In the book, Twain used different situations to make fun of beliefs in religion. Twain uses the issues between Grangerfords and Shepherdsons to point out issues in
religion and to show the hypocritical people during this era. Mark Twain wrote, "Next Sunday we all went to church about three mile, everyone a-horseback. The men took their gun and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall."(Twain 109) For Twain, such a vendetta is futile and useless. The issues have gone on so long that neither of them knows what sparked the feud. These men go to church to pray to God and when they're done, they go out and kill each other. This express the fact they go to church to make themselves look good in front of the society, not for holy motives. Additional examples of satire in the book is when Huck says, "Then 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 10) Twain uses this to make fun of Christian beliefs. After praying and not getting what he wants, Huck seems to think that there isn't a purpose for praying to God if nothing is attained from it.
In this time, stereotyping african-american people was occurring a lot in the white society.
Twain satirizes caucasian communities stereotypes in an attempt to diplomatically make fun of black people. Huck's childhood teaching taught him that slavery is an aspect of the natural order. Which caused him to not find anything wrong with the unfair treatment of slaves. At first in Huck and Jim's adventures Huck thinks of Jim as unlike himself. He tells him when he said, "when we was ready to shove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it was pretty broad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with a quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger a good ways off." (Twain 51) Now, Huck makes an incorrect assumption that people can see colored people from a mile away. He still believes that “niggers” are necessarily distinct from white people. One more piece of evidence of this is when Huckleberry speaks of Jim, he said, "he judged it was all up with him anyway it could be fixed; for if he didn't t get saved he would get drowned; and if he did get saved, whoever saved him would send him back home so as to get the reward, and then Miss Watson would sell him South, sure. Well, he was right; he was most always right; he had an uncommon head level head for a nigger." (Twain 76) There, Huckleberry thinks that colored people aren't as intelligent as whites. Yet again an example of a ordinary stereotypes of their era. Mark Twain uses Jim
discreetly to illustrate the fact that “niggers” are just as smart as “mulattoes”. Later, Twain uses satire when he writes of the rumor of Huckleberry's supposed death. Twain writes, "Some think old Finn done it himself… most everybody thought it at first. He'll never know how nigh he come to getting lynched. But before night they changed around and judged it was done by a runaway nigger named Jim." (Twain 56) First, people in their town suspect Pap, Huck's father, the town alcoholic for the killing of Huck. But, people start to think Jim cause he ran away the same day Huck was murdered. On the other hand, Jim wouldn’t have a reason to kill Huck unlike Pap whose reasoning for killing Huckleberry would be for what he will inherit.Twain portrays that white people in this era would rather blame an innocent black person for a murder, than blame another white person.
In the book, Mark Twain used Jim to describe many different types of beliefs.
Jim talks about a wide variation of superstitions from when Huck meets him on Jackson's Island until the end of the book. In the beginning, Huck doesn't like many of Jim's beliefs sees them as silly, but in the end he comes to be appreciative of Jim's vast understanding of the earth. Eventually Mark Twain mocks superstitions by telling, when Tom plays a trick on Jim as he sleeps, with his hat above him on a tree. He tries to explain where his hat went, Jim said, "Afterwards Jim said the witches be witched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it." (Twain 6) There, Twain mocks the boys for their fascination with the supernatural by try to show a confused Jim trying to give a proper explanation of what happened to his hat. One more example of superstitious is when Twain writes, "And he said that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn't got to the end of it yet. He said he druther see the new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a snake-skin in his hand." (Twain 53) Across the book, playing with a dead snake-skin is noted as” a sign of bad luck” and gets Jim and Huck into all sorts of “bad luck” escapades. More examples of superstitious is when Twain writes, "Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time and lighting. Jim
said it was a sign that it was going to rain." (Twain 45) This is an example of one of Jim's many odd superstitious views. Jim thinks there is an indication for everything that happens in the wilderness. Jim views the birds as the indication of rainfall. Because there aren't any weather devices in this era, indications like this one where used to infer weather patterns.
Mark Twain used an insane amount of satire in the book, especially to point out all of societies, at this present times,stereotypes, religion and superstitious views. His mockery of society is used to express how Mark Twain sees their ignorance. In the time frame the book place, society was stern and persistent their religious beliefs were correct. While its true spirit and religion are a earnest matter, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn gave the characters time to sit back, acknowledge their ways,and not only think about them but also not feel bad about them .