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, …show more content…
As soon as chapter four, we see Huck and Jim confide in a hairball, to which they ask to predict the future. It is inferred in the novel that the hairball derives from African folk culture, but is still made to feel out of place in the novel. Twain’s goal in doing so was to catch the audience off guard and open their eyes to the peculiarity of superstition. Later, when Huck plays with snakes, Jim goes on to say about how he just brought bad luck upon both of them by doing so. This is an immensely symbolic thing to say, directly alluding snakes to evil and misfortune. This idea however, is not very uncommon, with snakes and serpents being used in reference to vile actions since biblical times. It is incredibly likely that Mark Twain viewed superstition to be one of the biggest flaws of human consciousness, leading him to incorporate writing like this into his famous work of literary art. To conclude, humans are subject to numerous imperfections, many of which moral. Mark Twain has the power as a writer to express his opinions on such weaknesses through the creation of his characters and stories. His use of satire is extremely admirable and on par with other writers on his level. Throughout the story The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain uses satire to harp on ideas of greed and superstition, and how they affect human life and culture in negative