Mark Twain uses satire in the novel to confront the ideas and people that he believes are corrupt. Through the combination of theme and satire, Twain hopes to project just how corrupt society is. Twain’s main focus is the corruption of southern society and how morally wrong the South is. In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain satirizes mob mentality, religious hypocrisy, and gullibility in order to illuminate the corruption of society. Mark Twain satirizes mob mentality to attack the corruption of society. Twain believed that mobs were made up of corrupt people. In “Mark Twain and Human Nature”, Tom Quirk describes how the satirization of mobs leaves an impact on the reader, “Twain’s representation of these sorry specimens of bipeds is stunning, and chilling too, for the
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In Huck Finn, The Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons are feuding families who also happen to be religious hypocrites. An example of their hypocrisy is present when Huck states “ The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees and stood them handy against the wall. The Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty-ornery preaching all about brotherly love” (Twain 109). Through the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons, Mark Twain is insulting the religious hypocrisy of southern people. The fact that people can believe in something that teaches the loving of neighbours but those people encourage slavery and killing irked Twain. Tom Quirk states that Twain wanted to argue this point, “The behavior of a large segment of the population that clearly acted against its own self-interest and in its complicity sponsored the degradation of its own members” (“Mark Twain and Human Nature”).Ultimately the South is stubborn and likes to do actions that go against said “beliefs”. By satirizing religious hypocrisy Twain establishes the idea of a socially corrupt
In Huck Finn, The Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons are feuding families who also happen to be religious hypocrites. An example of their hypocrisy is present when Huck states “ The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees and stood them handy against the wall. The Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty-ornery preaching all about brotherly love” (Twain 109). Through the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons, Mark Twain is insulting the religious hypocrisy of southern people. The fact that people can believe in something that teaches the loving of neighbours but those people encourage slavery and killing irked Twain. Tom Quirk states that Twain wanted to argue this point, “The behavior of a large segment of the population that clearly acted against its own self-interest and in its complicity sponsored the degradation of its own members” (“Mark Twain and Human Nature”).Ultimately the South is stubborn and likes to do actions that go against said “beliefs”. By satirizing religious hypocrisy Twain establishes the idea of a socially corrupt