...Satire can make a hard to discuss topic mush more easily approached by writers. Mark Twain’s book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, contains many instances of extremely serious topics that are approached in a multitude of sarcastic and humorous ways. This satirical approach to sensitive subjects allows Mark Twain to speak his mind without causing a reader to immediately shy away from a discussion about something that they would normally avoid talking about. Child abuse is discussed early in the book and is a theme that reoccurs in other chapters. Huckleberry Finn has an abusive father which he calls Pap. Huck has acquired a large sum of money by returning stolen gold. Pap wants to get control of this money in order to fund his alcoholism. To do this he kidnaps Huck from his current caretakers the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson. When Pap finds Huck he sees that his son is dressing in nice clothes, knows how to read, and is going to school. Mark Twain uses this to show how child abuse is very serious, but also how those who abuse...
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...upererogatory Believe it or not, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck's adventures are secondary to a broader concept. The author of this novel, Mark Twain, uses a satire approach on society in the mid to late 1800's. He does this to enlighten a heavier topic of stereotypical views during this time, while still highlighting who and what the story is about, Huck and his adventures. It is apparent in how the women, drunks, and slaves are written. To find the bittersweet humor in it, it comes down to accepting that there is some truth to the stereotypes during this time period. From start to finish, in this novel women are made out to be prideful and concerned with other's well being over their own, until it came to their image in society. Basically women are the caretakers and characters like Miss Watson and Sally Phelps live up to this stereotype. They take their duties seriously. This could also stem from the fact that women did not usually have jobs and were always home, forcing them to find other ways to pass the time like "sivilizing'"children. For instance, Miss Watson expresses her gratefulness to have a slave like Jim and her determination to civilize Huck indefinitely. She then goes on to sell Jim into worse conditions for money and Huck is kidnapped on her watch. In the end, her 'womanly'...
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...The primary purpose of satire is to encourage a moral or political change in society with the use of irony, exaggeration and humour. In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain ridicules, society’s dehumanising belief in racism and pre-civil war religious hypocrisy. Similarly, in the satirical show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Migrants & Refugee, Oliver exploits the prejudice and religious hypocrisy in the European Immigration systems. With reference to both texts, it can be said, satirists form an incongruent and constructed world to expose the flaws of society. In their work, satirists often employ a representation of an incongruent society. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain exposes that dignity, honour and respect...
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...According to Merriam Webster satire is the use of humor that shows the weaknesses or bad qualities of a person, government, society, etc. Satire was used many times in Huckleberry Finn to get a point across. Some of these were when Huck had to give his money away in order to keep it away from his father, he also had to fake his own death to leave his father, the Grangerson's and Shepherdson's go to church and listen about peace and Huck's treatment of Jim verse the feelings towards slaves at the time. Twain used lots of satire throughout Huckleberry Finn to point out multiple flaws in American Society. The first example of satire in the satire was when Huckleberry had to give all of his money away to the judge. Although this was not funny it pointed out that he had no right to his money. Although his father had no right to the money because it was Huck's he could still get it because he is Huck's legal guardian. "No sir, I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at all- nor the six thousand nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give it to you, the six thousand and all" (Twain 27). Huckleberry knew he had to get rid of his money because it would fall into his father's hands eventually and he would spend it on booze and make Huck's life a living hell. This points out the negative side to the orphan system at the time. The parent...
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...Huck Finn: Recommended but not Required The probability of a student being able to understand and appreciate the value of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn if having been introduced to it too young and with a poor teacher is like a seed being able on to grow on concrete: improbable and disappointing. Similar to a student, a seed needs conducive and nurturing conditions in order to grow— that’s why only a small few end up reaching their full potential. Seeds need access to direct sunlight, water, and proper soil. Students need access to passionate teachers who are invested in educating their students properly—especially when it comes to challenging literature. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel that has immense value and meaning; however, it is also one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted stories of all time. Twain’s classic is continuously accused of supporting the prejudiced attitudes it is actually criticizing. This is especially apparent when these confusing passages are not properly explained and put in context by an inspirational teacher. Huck Finn has the ability to become detrimental when it is put in the hands of students who lack enough academic experience to understand the book’s purpose on their own and/or lack a teacher who can properly explain it to them. Educators need to be able to illustrate to students that through satire, Twain shares his beliefs about racism, religion, and other topics that plagued America at the time – all...
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...globe. His novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, made people realize that he is one of the greatest authors in the world. Soon he was seen as one of the greatest American writers in history. The book is about a boy named Huckleberry Finn, who is about twelve or thirteen, and about his great escape from his alcoholic and violent father. He flees with a runaway slave name Jim, and the two steal a canoe and travel through the river. Also, Huck decides to try to free Jim from slavery instead of turning on him. As they travel together, Huck learns more about Jim and his many stereotypes. He sees that many people he thought he could trust were hypocrites and lost faith in the legal system. After risking his life and beating many obstacles, Huck sets Jim free. Mark Twain focuses on the legal system, superstitions and religious hypocrisy throughout the book and uses his enthusiastic style of writing and satires three traits throughout the novel. The first use of satire Mark Twain used in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the legal system. Huck's father is am extremely volatile man. He is a...
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...According to Neil Schmitz, Mark Twain was, “a southern humorist gone over, not just a deserter, a dissenter, but a literary scalawag, a southern writer in unionist discourse and narrative” (91). Most people recognize Twain’s brief, witty, straightforward proverbs that are often quoted today. He also wrote many novels, a few nonfiction books, a plethora of short stories, and essays. Mark Twain uses a variety of rhetorical devices including carefully chosen, colorful language, satirical tone, and unique symbolism to entertain and to enlighten his readers about the moral dilemmas and the beauty of the America he knew. According to Ernest Hemingway, all of American literature comes from one great book, Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain, Huck Finn vii). Although this statement may seem hyperbolic, it does indicate the important place Mark Twain holds in American literature. Early Nineteenth century American writers tended to try to write like English writers with flowery, ostentatious language (Schmitz 100). Twain’s writing style was innovative when it was written and is still absolutely unique. He writes with simple prose and careful word choice. Each word is carefully selected and each sentence is meticulously crafted. Twain writes, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning” (Twain, Wit 71)....
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...“Nigger” shows up on 200+ occasions in the novel (Smith). According to Cassander L. Smith, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a racist book. Its constant use of vulgar language has caused many editors to try and remove the bad words. However, even if the words are all replaced, the message of racism and slavery still shines through (Smith). Even if the word nigger is replaced throughout the novel, the readers would still comprehend what is being said. (Smith). For example if one says “gosh darn” everyone knows what the message is even without the cussing. It is not just language and vocabulary used to get a point across, but tone and sentence structure. Towards the end of the novel, Aunt Sally asks if anyone was hurt and Huck replies, “No’m....
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...Mark Twain expertly uses satire in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to express his disappointment in human nature. He satirizes many areas of people’s lives, but focuses on greed and superstition as his main two. Examples of these two can be see throughout the book, subliminally planting the ideas of human fallacy in the reader’s mind. Greed and superstition are the focus of satirical measures in the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. One of the seven deadly sins, greed is an infallible trait found in every single human being. Mark Twain makes a great example of this throughout the entire use of the con men characters, who are perpetually trying to exploit other people’s good nature, often times through unethical methods. People,...
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...Adventures of Huckleberry Finn contains many characters with a strong sense of morality, but they have no real cause to believe it, which directly relates today to Stephen Colbert's creation of the word "truthiness". In Huck Finn, Mark Twain uses satire to make the point that morality is an idea, not a feeling. He demonstrates this theme with many different characters. Examples are the judge who sends Huck to live with his abusive father, the Grangerfords' confusing feud with the Sheperdsons, and the Wilks sisters preference to being polite rather than learning the truth about the strangers who claim to be their family. All these characters act on their gut instincts, and this connects directly to Stephen Colberts' definition of the word...
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...Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” observes a heavily satirized southern society placed in a time before the Civil War. The topics lampooned within range widely and allow us ample opportunity to address Twain’s commentaries on the assigned topics of religion, education, and slavery. Our protagonist, Huckleberry Finn, is a young man of limited education and religion. Having been taken into a household comprised of a widow and a spinster, the women were determined to rectify Huck’s deficiencies. One of the tactics the ladies used was to educate Huck about both heaven and hell, and to relate his behavior to the likelihood of his attaining one or the other. Unfortunately, the Widow Douglas and the spinster Miss Watson had differing ideas about the delights Providence offered. Miss Watson presented a dry account of a heaven peopled by harp playing singers, while the Widow offered a more attractive proposition. These contradictions caused Huck some consternation as he’d he felt that he’d tolerate the Widow’s heaven, but wasn’t interested in Miss Watson’s, especially as she felt his friend Tom Sawyer would not be there. There may have been a grain of truth to Miss Watson’s statement, as despite Tom having been the person who convinced Huck to return to the ladies’ home, he did so by offering Huck a chance to join his band of robbers and murderers if he would live respectably. That aside, Tom and his gang were not without redemptive qualities. When trying to find a day of the...
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...For centuries a war has been roaring in the world of literature about the american classic Huckleberry Finn. You are either on the side saying Huck Finn should be banned or that it should be praised for being a well written novel reflecting human weakness. While researching there was a considerable amount more of people who believe Huck Finn to be a great novel. But with great persistence I have came to believe that Huckleberry Finn should be not be taught in school due to having large amounts of the N-word, racial stereotypes, and religious disobedience. Throughout the novel Twain repeatedly uses the N word to such a degree that is intolerable. During the entirety of the novel “Twain uses the N-word a total of 219 times”(CBS 2). “NAACP...
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...several high schools in America or most likely the world. Books like: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper and so many others, are still amusing to this day. Mark Twain is considered one of America’s greatest novelist and one of the world’s greatest writers of juvenile and comic literature. In all of his works he utilizes similar techniques, like, satiric irony, which are currently still being studied today. Mark Twain had a very weird and unique writing technique...
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...Slavery in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Metaphor Over the past three centuries, only a handful of American authors have achieved such success that their work continues to be read and studied decades, even hundreds of years after their deaths. Mark Twain achieved this success by writing some of the greatest novels American literature has ever seen. Arguably his most famous work, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn essentially revolutionized American literature. One might say that Twain initiated the transition from romantic epics to more realistic-based tales. A second profound American author, Ernest Hemingway, even said, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn,” (Hemingway). Within this work, Twain uses some topics that were very controversial at the time to present an even more insightful idea. While one of the main issues in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is slavery, Twain uses it as an allegory for the struggle, that still exists today, between an individual’s conscience and society’s norms and ideals. In this novel, the setting and time period during which it takes place plays a significant part in the overall plot. Though Twain wrote this novel in the 1880s, several years after the Emancipation Proclamation, he chose to set the novel a few decades before the Emancipation Proclamation. In choosing this, he enabled himself to highlight slavery as one of the main issues of the novel. During the time when the...
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...weren’t the one being ridiculed. Luckily as time passed by and America became industrialized and settled, more and more people began to realize that this hatred towards other people is wrong. Fortunately for humanity, there were some special souls that realized society was wrong way before everyone else did. One of these special souls is an author by the name of Mark Twain, who used satire and moral critique to make fun of race relations and new American culture hypocrisies. Mark Twain was a social critic who observed a society filled with bigotry and racism, even after the abolition of slavery. Twain lived in a time when there were two very separate and also very different belief systems. The first is a world where every man is equal and every person is entitled to his or her freedom. The second, and sadly more common, is the exact opposite of the first. In this system you were looked at as either a legit civilized member of society or on the contrary, a savage. This belief is what Mark Twain boldly opposed and attacks in his story, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Throughout the story, Mark Twain uses satire and moral critique to make fun of the racial, religious, and social hypocrisies present in the characters and their resulting actions. As we all know, race relations have been a huge factor in the foundation of New America. Slaves were brought over by the hundred thousands to work and serve in the new world. Even to this day, tension is...
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