The Adventure Of Huckleberry Finn Literary Analysis

Mark Twain’s The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn is an American masterpiece. Contrary to The Algerine Captive Mark Twain‘s satire and irony is emphasized through the style and the use of the American “vernacular” dialect for the first time as well as the use of the African-American dialect. Therefore Huckleberry Finn remains the work that elevates this onetime rustic humorist into the ranks of literary genius. It is considered by Satirist Dick Gregory once said that Twain “was so far ahead of his time that he shouldn’t even be talked about on the same day as other people Huckleberry Finn is considered as the first American Novel and aimed at forging an American identity independent from the European one. The Novel, hence, satirize the paradoxical issues of slavery and the hypocrisy of the society as well as the deep intuitions of America.
On first, Mark Twain satirizes the Legal system of The United States of America. Although the townsfolk know of Pap's drunkenness, abuse, lack of education, and overall poor character, the court gives him custody because he is the biological
father. If we compared with Jim , we can notice that this later took care of Huck more than did his father , therefore this is an example of satire in America's Legal system., a system meant to be the basic and the trust of all America since equality and justice is an important creed of American identity.
Later on, in the Novel Mark Twain satirize the Slavery institution. At the time Mark Twain wrote Huck Finn, slavery had been abolished, but prejudice and racism had not. While there are many examples of cruelty towards Jim throughout the Novel, the story is centered around Huck and Jim's adventure together, in which Huck actually starts to care for Jim, satirizing how some people treated slaves when they were actually good people. Using satire mark Twain attenuate the harshness of the white people toward the black people.
Moreover, The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn satirizes the Civil war, showing that union is a basic element to The American identity.
This is obvious through the episode of the two family feud; The Grangerfords and Shepherdsons' family, in fact have been fighting for so long but over something so unnecessary that sometimes they forget what exactly they were fighting for. In the Civil War's case, it was slavery. Twain is showing that the Civil War escalated into something so violent, with so many deaths over a long period of time, but it could have been settled if the people had just been a little more moralistic. By that episode Mark Twain clearly States that slaves as the other American are fighting for their independence as did the founding fathers, and because they are as all American their fight is for no reason and in normal conditions should have been free since the
independence.
Besides, the use of satire Mark Twain employed irony to denounce and make fun of the American. Irony involves a reversal of some sort and can best be understood as a language that means the opposite of what it appears. Twain employed four types of irony: verbal irony, situational irony, comic irony and dramatic irony.
The verbal irony is the use of words to mean the opposite of what you really mean, an example in Huck Finn is when Huck says it is “all right” that the widow Douglass takes a snuff, and in reality Twain means the opposite. The second type is the situational irony, employed by Twain the majority of the plot. An example from many others is in chapter eleven. “Some think old Finn done it himself... But before night they changed around and judged it was done by a runaway nigger named Jim.”(Mark, Twain, Page 210) In this quote, Twain demonstrates that when crimes occurred, blacks were immediately responsible before whites, this express about the encouragement and strength which is just founded in the black man. A further type is the comic irony, mark Twain use it to create humor. An example of this type is when Huck says: “Jim said bees wouldn’t sting idiots, but I didn’t believe that, because I had tried them lots of times myself, and they wouldn’t sting me”(Mark Twain page 210) Huck made a jock calling himself an idiot. Therefore he is not a reliable Narrator putting into question all what he narrates. Simultaneously, Twain make the reader question all the aspect of the Novel as well as all the aspect of The American identity. At least and not last, Twain employed the dramatic irony. And the most interesting example is the end of the Novel, when Jim is set free by Miss Watson ironically Tom knows but Huck and Jim ignored this fact. Thus, after a series of questioning all the aspect of the fundamental components of The American identity and belief, Mark Twain dramatically end the story by showing the unnecessary of all the Adventure of Huck and Jim as well as Tom’s plan to save Jim, similarly to the family feud it is for no reason Jim is a runaway since he is freed. One more time shows that what should happen to Jim happened without escaping as an American equal to the other.
Twain by using satire and irony was able to criticize and depict paradoxical elements in the American society that stopped the formation of The American identity. Moreover, Twain used for the first time the American vernacular language as well as giving the parole to a slave using the African-American dialect. As Shelly Fisher Fishkin States:

In the "Explanatory" with which Huckleberry Finn begins, Twain enumerates seven dialects used in the book, one of which is "Missouri negro dialect." Critics have debated whether Twain did, in fact, use seven dialects, or more, or fewer; but they have generally assumed that the only "negro dialect" in the book is that spoken by African-American characters. On a phonological level, that assumption is correct: only African-American characters, for example, say "dat," as opposed to "that." But phonology alone does not describe a voice, as the voluminous criticism about what makes Huck's voice distinctive clearly shows. Voice involves syntax and diction, the cadences and rhythms of a speaker's sentences, the flow of the prose, the structures of the mental processes, the rapport with the audience, the characteristic stance as regards the material related. (SHELLEY FISHER FISHKIN, page 375)

Therefore, his Novel is considered as the first American Novel. More than that, the usage of the language although he used it as a humoristic literary device, Twain permitted the acceptance of the African-American dialect by all the Americans.
In a word language is an important part of The American identity. Ironically, the unique difference between the Adventure of Huckleberry Fin and the Algerine Captive is the usage of language. In Algeria the language the doctor found was not a language per se, whereas Mark Twain succeeds in imposing the American language.