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Examples Of Satire In Huckleberry Finn

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How Satire Connects with Day-to-Day Living in Society What exactly is satire? Well, satire is the use of humor or irony to criticize or mock the people’s knowledge or vices. Mark Twain makes use of satire in his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a telling of a boy named Huckleberry Finn and his daily adventures through his boyhood near the Mississippi River. This novel discusses many themes such as the paradox between the “natural” man and the “civilized society”, the evils that take place in slave culture, and the dignity of human beings. Within the novel, Twain makes usage of satire in religion, society, hypocrisy, and slavery to show the ironies pointed out in human nature. Throughout the course of Huckleberry Finn, Twain exemplifies mockery when he causes Huck to inquire as to why he should care greatly about religious figures. “...I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by-and-by she let out that Moses had been dead…so then I didn’t care no more about him; because I don’t take no stock in dead people (2).” In the quote, Huck is uncovering the irony of religion. Within his mind, why should anybody care about these religious figures if they’re long dead? Twain uses Huck’s statement to show the …show more content…

“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 (34).” In this passage, Huck is being humble in saying that he has tried at Jim’s superstition and was not stung. The peculiar portion of this though, is that Huck is highly intelligent in seeing right through the hypocrisy and the acts that many people portray. Twain uses this assertion as a way to poke fun at the ironies within hypocrisy and for the readers to see clearly that Huck is intellectual, but is being humble in saying

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