Huckleberry Finn Satire

The Grangerfords and Pap are two of the characters who are utilized by Twain to denounce edified society. Twain utilizes parody to express his conviction that "acculturated" society is neither good, moral, nor civilized.  Exaggeration, stereotyping, and incongruity are utilized all through the story to satirize and to uncover the Grangerfords as the run of the mill southern blue-bloods and pap as the regular plastered "white junk."

Throughout Huck’s adventures, he is put in numerous situations where he must depend on himself, and use his own judgment to make fundamental decisions that will later have an affect on his life. Growing up, Huck has always been considered an outcast amongst all his peers and in society as a whole. Consistently throughout the book, all the people he is forced to live with try to change him. Prior to the start of the novel, Miss Watson and Widow Douglas have been granted legal custody of Huck, who views him as an uncivilized boy who possesses no morals. Huck explains in the opening chapter, “The Widow Douglas, she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me”(Twain 1).

The first way mark twain shows freedom is different for each person is through Jim. Throughout the book Jim is on a search for his freedom. He has been a Slave his whole life and has finally had this chance to gain his freedom. When Huck and Jim are getting close to Cairo huck shows his enthusiasm by saying “We’s safe, Huck, we’s safe! Jump up and crack yo’ heels! Dat’s de good ole Cairo at las’, I jis knows it!” (88) Jim knows he is close to being in a state that will allow him to be free from the chains of slavery. He shows this excitement as they approach their destination. Around the same time Jim tells huck about his ideas for when he is free. Huck said Jim was telling him “he would go to saving up money...and when he got enough he would buy his wife...they would both work to buy the two children”. (88) this quote shows how Jim imagines his freedom happening. Freedom for Jim means he will have his whole family out of slavery. He will be free from the chains that keep him from living his life and the social standards that keep him from being a human.

With Huck’s outsider’s perspective Twain shows us hypocrisy in common society. Every time Huck (and by extension the reader) starts to agree with a particular ideology of a group of people, every time Twain starts to develop a theme (such as the importance of family or religion, brotherhood, community), Twain addresses the problems with such idealisms in his estimation. Take, for example, Chapter 17’s ‘the Grangerford and Shepherdson episode’. Huck come to be with a kind and rich family and does genuinely think about staying there for a while as they seem perfect and really show the importance of family to Huck… it was not meant to be. On a walk with a Grangerford, someone from the Sherpeson family… and the Grangerford attempts to shoot the Shepardson for no apparent reason. When Huck asks him why he did that the Grangerford explains a long-standing and bloody feud between the two families, the purpose of which no one can remember. Disgusted Huck stays with them a few more days and eventually attends church with them where a sermon about brotherly love and kindness is given and the Grangerfords love it…. But instead of applying this to their lives they continue to try to kill the Grangerfords soon after. This is among the biggest ways in which Twain backpedals his themes. We were shown the themes of family and of brotherhood and what not, but then we’re shown the complete opposite as it adds realism as well as contradictions, with

Huckleberry Finn matures morally in his adventures when having to make decisions throughout his journey for the future of his life and his slave friend, Jim. Huck has grown up learning bad morals caused by living with his drunk and abusive father, and with no one to tell him otherwise, he keeps the same morals that his dad taught him. Fortunately, Huck is helped by Jim, a runaway slave who joins him on his journey and helps Huck develop his own morals with decisions Huck makes. Throughout Huck's adventures, he is put into numerous situations where he must use his own judgement to make decisions that will affect the morals Huck will carry with him throughout his life. Huck matures in the novel through his morals when he is confronted with life

Authors of classic American literature often utilize a character’s development to establish a worldview or opinion. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Great Gatsby, Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald use their narrators, Huck Finn and Nick Carraway, to suggest an argument about American society. Seeking adventure, both characters embark on a journey, but their encounters with society leave them appalled. While they each have personal motives for abandoning their past, both end up interacting with different cultures that lead them to a similar decision about society and their futures. Ultimately, they stray from the dominant culture in order to escape the influence of society. Therefore, Twain and Fitzgerald claim that American society

people based on their physical traits, such as skin color, and genetics. Race can be used as a mechanism for social division. As the novel unfolds, Huckleberry Finn’s perspective on race changes as he sees the importance for equality in Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

As Huck travels, he meets many characters. These characters give the reader perspective on how Twain views people. When Huck boards a sinking ship he encounters some criminals. He overhears them deciding whether they should kill one of their members or not and they say, ¨He 'll be drowned, and won 't have nobody to blame for it but his own self. I reckon that´s a considerable sight better´n killin´ of him¨ (70). These criminals reflect the cruel people that Twain believes exist.

In the text, The Ethical Life, by Russ Shafer-Landau, it questions Jonathan Bennett’s morality and sympathy and how the two of them can come into conflict. Morality and sympathy are connected, but still very different. Throughout this chapter, Jonathan Bennett outlines many important points and factors that go into these connections and how they can overlap and conflict.

Feeling guilty shows a person’s awarness of social criticism which is related to social control. In the The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , individuals feeling guilty is a major component of society. During his trip on the Mississippi river, Huck thinks he is committing a sin by opposing society and defending Jim. On the river Huck meets some men searching for runaway slaves, Huck creates a story about his dad having smallpox on the raft. The men are scared of catching smallpox and give Huck money and instruct him not to let people know that his dad’s sick when searching for help. Once the men leave, Huck admits, "I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it waren't no use for me to try to learn to do right” (pg69). Society’s norms make

Every person encompasses their own unique opinion. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck Finn possesses a conscience that makes him one of the most important and recognizable figures in American literature. However, Claudia Durst Johnson, a critic, believes that because of Huck’s actions the novel “is one of the most radical and darkly bitter books in the American canon. It represents the breaking of federal law as moral. It recommends disobedience and defiance on the part of young people.” This statement is disagreeable because although Huck does break the federal law as a moral, he does it for the right reasons. Therefore, making the great American classic not such a radical and darkly bitter book after all.

This passage is where I think Huck truly lost all this innocence because once one witnesses a massive bloody murder, there is no going back to pretend nothing happened. It reminds of a soldier suffering from PTSD. The vague diction presents how lost Huck is, and how he is trying to repress those memories, which reflects the cruelty in human nature and how a child’s innocence and be crushed instantly because of the adults a community

Summary: Through the voice of Huckleberry Finn, a deep criticism of racism and civilized society’s rules is narrated to the reader as Huck and Jim, escape from civilized society and set sail on a raft down the Mississippi river to slavery-free states. Both characters share a common goal: to be free of the rules that a civilized society places. Huck and Jim form an alternative family as they head down the river along with two white adult conmen they rescued, who commit many scams . These conmen are responsible for turning Jim into a local farmer

Twain illustrates the critical tone by including words and phrases such as cover up, n*gger, and people could tell. The phrase cover up and n*gger illustrate the fear Huck has which develops from the ideals of his society. Huck acknowledges that his Antebellum society thinks that harboring Jim is bad judgement on his behalf so he tries to hide Jim so no conflicts rise due to his race. People could tell is incorporated in the quote in order to illustrate that the thoughts and ideals of what others think does have some wright to it and that he is not in a position to fully take care of someone else, especially when that someone else is a runaway

“...[The widow] sent a man over to get hold of me, but Pap drove him off with the gun, and it warn’t long after that till I was used to being where I was, and liked it, all but the cowhide part…”