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Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn Satire Analysis

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Satire is defined as “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices.” Mark Twain’s use of satire throughout “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” shows his beliefs on many controversies that afflicted the country at that time, such as slavery and human nature. Satire helps make this story so engaging because it is funny yet covering a serious topic. His purpose of writing this story was to attack the immoralities of the American society in the eighteen hundreds and correct them. The significance of Twain’s use of satire in situations such as, sentimentality and gullibility, the average man, romantic literature with its mournful subject matter in poetry and its ridiculous plots in novels, a code of honor that results in needless bloodshed, and religious dogma influenced the reader considerably. Twain’s use of satire in the average man situation has the most influence upon the reader. The average man does the same thing day in and day out. In the book, Colonel Sherburn’s speech reminds the townspeople that they are the mindless sheep who can only act in groups and never dare to think for themselves. He stands before the crowd and says, "If any real lynching's going to be done it will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they …show more content…

An example of this situation, is the family feud between the Grangerfords and the Shephersons. The code of honor is the theory of “an eye for an eye”, in which the families go back in forth killing each other till both lineages end and neither family wins. The feud lasted so long that the families did not even remember why they were fighting. Twain also alludes to “Romeo and Juliet” when a Grangerford and Shepherdson falls in love and runs off making the family feud even more severe. The reader may be influenced to be more inclined for peace because there are no true winners in

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