Satire In Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn

Also, through Twain's depiction of African Americans, he provides the potential for satire...in the service of truth. W.H. Auden (1996, p.65), referring to Jim's escape, wrote "When I first read the book I took this to be abolitionist satire on Mark Twain's part. It is not that at all." Twain was not trying to spread abolitionist propaganda with this book but was pointing out the cruelty he saw against blacks. Nowhere, however, in the novel is the satire of man's cruelty to man more predominant than the tarring and feathering of the king and duke. The two of them, who had been swindling and cheating people during their entire stay with Huck and Jim on the raft, were finally repaid in full. Huck notes the terrible cruelty of the situation: "Human beings can be awful cruel to one …show more content…
His most direct attack was aimed at Sir Walter Scott, the Romantic writer. Huck strands a gang on a wrecked steamboat, and finds a captain to go out and save them from the wreck. "'What wreck?' 'Why, there ain't but one.' 'What, you don't mean the Walter Scott?'(Twain, Mark. 1981, p.72). This shows "Twain's obsession with Sir Walter Scott's influence on Southern Culture...tallied in the name of the steamboat Huck and Jim board in order to have an adventure" (James M, 1966, p.162 as cited in Howards, 2005). Yet their adventure almost takes a turn for the worse, showing Twain's belief that Romanticism can be a dangerous thing. Twain used another target for his satire more because it was funny than because there was something wrong with it. This target was superstition. At several points in the novel Twain satirizes superstition, yet at others he seems to confirm its validity. It seems that Twain satirizes superstition up to a point, since some superstition is grounded in folk-knowledge. Twain recognizes the importance of superstition in many people's lives, but that didn't stop him from satirizing