Throughout "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", Huck an Jim encounter many different groups of people as they travel down the Mississippi River. Mark Twain uses these encounters as opportunities to point out various flaws in society and poke fun of many of the social institutions that the pair find. Twain does this through a method called satire, which uses humor to point out the flaws of a person or a group of people. One of the social groups that Twain does this to are Christians, or the entire idea of how people practice religion in general. Also, Twain pokes fun at royalty, or people in royalty such as kings and dukes. And finally, another victim of Twain 's satire are violent groups such as mobs or feuding families. The use of satire
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Twain 's satire is present when Huck is questioning Buck about why the two families are fighting, and Buck doesn 't even know. Buck even goes as far as to say that he respects the other family, yet he wants to kill them just because of the feud. Another humorous part of the novel was the situation with Boggs and Sherburn. Boggs was a town drunk who was killed by Sherburn, which caused am angry mob to emerge as a result. However, when Sherbern threatens that mob that had clearly outnumbered him, the mob quit, showing that cowardice of the group. "The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that 's what an army is--a mob; they don 't fight with courage that 's born in them, but with courage that 's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it, is beneath pitifulness." (Twain 157). Twain uses these two occurrences to show the overwhelming flaws of a mob-mentality style of thinking. For example, when only one member of the mob yelled that Sherburn should be lynched, it caused the rest of the crowd to think the same exact thing. Also, the Shepardsons and the Grangerfords are all just blindly fighting a large deadly feud, one that nobody can even remember the reason for. This is another example of Twain 's distaste for blind conformity. Twain wants people to think for themselves and have their own free will, rather then just follow the actions of others. In conclusion, Mark Twain uses excellent methods to get his views out into the world. His use of satire in serious situation allows the message to be less intimidating, while still being something that people can learn
Twain 's satire is present when Huck is questioning Buck about why the two families are fighting, and Buck doesn 't even know. Buck even goes as far as to say that he respects the other family, yet he wants to kill them just because of the feud. Another humorous part of the novel was the situation with Boggs and Sherburn. Boggs was a town drunk who was killed by Sherburn, which caused am angry mob to emerge as a result. However, when Sherbern threatens that mob that had clearly outnumbered him, the mob quit, showing that cowardice of the group. "The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that 's what an army is--a mob; they don 't fight with courage that 's born in them, but with courage that 's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it, is beneath pitifulness." (Twain 157). Twain uses these two occurrences to show the overwhelming flaws of a mob-mentality style of thinking. For example, when only one member of the mob yelled that Sherburn should be lynched, it caused the rest of the crowd to think the same exact thing. Also, the Shepardsons and the Grangerfords are all just blindly fighting a large deadly feud, one that nobody can even remember the reason for. This is another example of Twain 's distaste for blind conformity. Twain wants people to think for themselves and have their own free will, rather then just follow the actions of others. In conclusion, Mark Twain uses excellent methods to get his views out into the world. His use of satire in serious situation allows the message to be less intimidating, while still being something that people can learn