Juxtaposition In Huckleberry Finn

“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is a piece of fiction that is so strongly written it can be conceived as the truth. Mark Twain’s ability to paint a clear and realistic picture of the Southern way of life in 1885 is unparalleled in any author. The story of Huckleberry Finn is one that gives ample opportunity for interesting sights into the South at that time. The story consists of Huck and a runaway slave, along with two men and Huck’s faithful friend Tom Sawyer and some points of the novel, floating down the Mississippi’s shores and encountering different feats of Southern culture, tragedy, and adventure. A nice example of Twain’s ability to turn an event on a river into an analysis of Southern culture is a fun bit of the story where Huck

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written in 1885, is a literary satire written by Mark Twain. The setting of the novel takes place prior to the Civil War along the Mississippi River. This novel presents moral and ethical problems that southern culture placed on individuals during the time period it was written. Twain wrote his Realist period novel to criticize what he believed was wrong with the society of his time. Twain presented his novel through the eyes and speech of the twelve year-old Huckleberry Finn to show his criticism towards this society. Although the novel has been criticized since its publication, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is still considered one of the greatest American novels ever written. Twain uses Huck

Although The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an exciting and seemingly light-hearted story, Mark Twain wrote the book to expose the systemic flaws in antebellum American society. One of its major themes is hypocrisy. Twain used a satirical approach to uncover the racial and religious hypocrisy of the South.

The Grangerfords, who allow Huck to stay with them for as long as he would like, have been involved in a murderous feud with the Shepherdson family for decades, only halting their incessant fighting to attend church with one another on Sundays. Page 109 describes this, stating, “Next Sunday we all went to church...The men took their guns along and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching-all about brotherly love...everybody said it was a good sermon.” Once more, Twain uses irony to highlight the hypocrisy of human beings, specifically of Christians, by describing how the rival families put their differences aside long enough to listen to a sermon on brotherly love, only to attempt to kill each other the very next day, undermining the message of the sermon. Through the implementation of irony, Twain succeeds at criticizing the hypocritical nature of many Christians and of the societies in which they live.

Throughout the novel, Twain shows his contempt for corrupt human nature. Although these instances are often satirized and exaggerated, the message is still the same. For instance, when the King and the Duke first start to lie about being the dead Peter Wilks’ brothers to obtain his money, Huck says, “It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race,” (191). In this instance Twain is utilizing Huck to show his aversion to the way people lie and cheat, and how a couple of people can make a bad name for all of us. Another example is when Jim sells the King and Duke out to the townspeople and they are carried on a pole, tarred and feathered. Although Huck, has tried to escape the King and Dukes several occasions and has witnessed the cruelties put on others and lies they tell, he does not think that they deserve similar treatment. In fact, he says, “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another,” (269). Through Huck, Twain is voicing his opposition to how people treat one another, whether they deserve it or not. Thus Twain is using his novel to voice his enmity for the cruelty in human nature.

Many authors use satire to discuss issues in society that they have opinions on. These authors express their opinions by mocking the issues in a subtle way in their writing. Throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain satirizes many societal elements. Three of these issues include the institution of slavery, organized religion, and education.

Mark Twain uses his novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, to point out the flaws of society. Huck Finn meets a runaway slave, Jim, and together Twain uses them to walk the readers through a society that is based on slavery and dishonesty. There were many defects within the Southern society because of the conflict between christianity and slavery. Mark Twain uses Huck, Jim, and other characters as well as humor and satire to point out religious hypocrisy.

Year after year The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is placed in the top ten banned books in America. People find the novel to be oppressing and racially insensitive due to its frequent use of the n-word and the portrayal of blacks as a Sambo caricature. However, this goes against Mark Twain’s intent of bringing awareness to the racism in America. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is classified under the genre of satire and is narrated by a fictional character named Huckleberry Finn. The novel takes place in the south during the year 1845. With his abusive father, and no mother, Huck is left feeling lonely, and as if he has place to call his home. So he decides to leave town, and on in his journey where he encounters a slave he’s familiar with, Jim, who is also running away. This story captures their relationship and growth as they face many obstacles on their way to freedom. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn satirizes people’s greed and violent behavior by mocking the stereotype of southern hospitality.

Mark Twain's use of satire within his novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is to promote his criticism of American society. Twain uses humor, irony, and excessive exaggeration as a way to criticize. In this case, Twain is taking serious issues in America and exaggerating them to make them easier to read about. Targeting these specific problems with irony is what Twain did best. Within the novel, Twain uses satire to show greed, family issues, and civilization within the American Society.

Mark Twain once said, "Lie--an abomination before the Lord and an ever present help in time of trouble." Twain's description of deceit gives it a type of double meaning. This idea of lying being used for good as well as evil is not unheard of. Many time people find it necessary to lie to maintain a greater good or save a life. However, all too often, people lie for self-serving, immoral purposes. In this quote, Twain elegantly shows the delicate balance between good and evil in the performance of the same act. Furthermore, Twain also shows this complex thought in his portrayal of characters in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twains novel emulates his quote, juxtaposing the good and bad aspects of stretching the truth. Throughout

Twain uses satire through Sherburn's speech to criticize human nature and the society as a whole. Sherburn describes the mobs and the town people as cowards since they wouldn't be able to lynch him and go against him if they were not in a group. Through this satire from Sherburn's speech, the readers can understand Twain's view on human nature. Twain pokes fun of the fact that in society, people often times follow with whatever the crowd believes in rather than what an individual believes

Hypocrisy is simultaneously one of the most shameful and identifiable character flaws. Although it is fairly common to experience feelings of resentment toward a person who believes (or claims they believe) one thing and then acts incongruently with that belief, to accuse that person of being a hypocrite requires examination of one’s own inconsistencies before pointing a finger. Mark Twain, a brilliant and iconoclastic classic author, manipulates the paradoxical nature of hypocrisy in telling the story of Huckleberry Finn, an innocent-minded protagonist who encounters hypocritical characters frequently along his journey. When Twain’s reader notices through Huck’s eyes that an otherwise God-fearing, honorable person does something immoral

Another way to divide the criticism of the ending of the novel is to split the seriousness and the satire. The novel can be viewed as satire, with Tom providing the comic relief with his Romanticist like ideas. On the contrary, it can be viewed with utter disappointment, in regards to an overall poor and easy way to end the novel. As Marx argues, humour is used to mask the very human existence in which Huck faces (Page 337-338). I believe that Twain wants to abandon the notion of seriousness (slavery, southern hospitality, etc) to that of foolishness and childlike antics. Take, for instance, when Huck does some reconnaissance dressed as a woman, but gets caught in the act when he catches the lead ball between his legs (Page 48-54).Or when the town first realizes that Huck is gone and fires cannon over the water and throws mercury poisoned bread into the river. Superstitious, but silly antics like these and many others help back up the notion for humour. Although both of these events occur near the beginning of the novel, their direct sense of humour can be linked to the ending and its own satire. I believe that Twain’s message was impartial to that of the touchy subjects of slavery and general prejudice, but more so to that of the direct targeting of laughter and folly of the

Twain uses deliberate syntactical patterns in order to create an ironic disparity between Huck’s strong moral conscience and his inability to convey his judgments in a grammatically correct way. For example, Huck feels guilty about the plans of his acquaintances to con money from a mourning woman and “felt so ornery and low down and mean” that he decided to “hive that money for them or bust” (175). Twain uses the juxtaposition of Huck’s decision that stealing money from the woman was immoral and his plans to steal the money back from the conmen in his syntactical pattern to emphasize Huck’s ironic method of redeeming a crime with an action similar to the crime. Twain contrasts Additionally, when Huck encounters criminals while traveling down the river with Jim, he plans to hide the boat “in a place

.” (Twain, ix) He openly and firstly acknowledges the irregularities in this story and explains that it is not on a whim that he uses this specific type of language but with the purpose to expose the world to a new and original form of literary design. The main character in this story is Huckleberry Finn, the complete opposite of a traditional European hero; he is not the typical king or nobleman that traditional stories tell of. He is an everyday boy uneducated and seemingly unworthy, Huckleberry Finn is the epitome of a real American every day hero. Mr. Twain writes this book as a way to show that just by simply maturing and growing up so that Huckleberry Finn can make the right decisions in all aspects of his life; it makes him a noble character. “We are asked to trust this not as a sport, but rather as a well-considered and well-honed document. . . We are invited to experience and to appreciate this narrative in terms of its thought, its thoughtfulness, and its craft.” (Fertel, 159 –Free and Easy”)