Satire In The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

The reading requirement of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is not worth the discomfort of students and teachers due to racism and sensitive topics.

Twain’s novel, while possibly bringing light to the hostile nature of racism through his satire, does not leave stereotypes out at all. He consistently exaggerates black characters. Even though that is typical in satire, it is wholly uncomfortable for everyone involved in reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. When Huck and Jim are crossing the river into Illinois, Huck states that the reason Jim must cover up is: “because if he set up, people could tell he was a n*gger a good ways off.”(Twain 120) When read aloud, the “n-word” is an extremely uncomfortable situation, regardless

The use of minstrel stereotypes on top of the n-word used in the novel makes the story even more unbearable. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn truly do use Jim as a toy much of the time throughout the story. When locked away, Tom acts his story-like fantasies out on Jim, telling him to he needed to suffer because others do(in stories). Tom states: “But Jim, you got to have ‘em(the rats)--they all do. So don’t make more fuss about it. Prisoners ain’t ever without rats.” (Twain 252) Consequently, this allows the reader to make the assumption that Jim is simply a character inserted into the story to suffer for the sake of laughs, and therefore permitting the audience to believe the same for other black people. Julius Lester believes: “Jim is diminished to a “minstrel” figure rather than the “admirable” person he was earlier.”() Even discounting the so-called

These topics are often uncomfortable due to the simple nature of the acts. The discomfort of these acts are acknowledged in the book when Huck witnesses the punishment of the duke and king, two characters he meets that scheme and mistreat people. Huck mentions: “Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn’t ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful dreadful to eachother.”(Twain 232) While the acknowledgement of the duke and king’s punishments proves the satirical element of the instance, it does not make the event any less unbearable to read about. Most, if not all, would agree that this scene is not graphic as it is written, but arguably, the nature of the punishment discredits the lack of gore within the scene. Another reat example of horrid topics in Huck Finn is the drastic child abuse Huck faces with Pap. Pap, Huck’s father, is an astounding example of a raging alcoholic, even in 1870s standards. Before Huck sets off on his adventure, he has to escape from the hands of Pap, who locks him in Pap’s home, rarely coming home, unless he’s drunk. Huck recounts his abuse, stating, “But by-and-by pap got too handy with his hick’ry and I couldn’t stand it. I was all over welts. He got