Examples Of Satire In Huckleberry Finn

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In the book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the author Mark Twain claims that the story has no significant meaning. But this isn’t true, Twain uses satire throughout his whole novel. Some examples of these are his view on romanticism, hypocrisy and mob mentality, and lastly his overall view of slavery and government. The first example of Twain’s satire in his novel is his view on romanticism. Twain thinks of Romanticism as pointless and absurd. In the book, he uses the Grangerford and Shepherdson feud the be satirical about Romeo and Juliet. “ It started thirty year ago, or som’ers along there. There was trouble ‘bout something” (Twain 108). In this quote, Twain is showing his opinion on the feud in Romeo and Juliet. He thinks of romanticism as a lie that doesn’t show people the real world. All of the chapters about the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons are being very satirical about Shakespeare and the romanticism style of writing. …show more content…
He shows this in his description of the church sermon on “Brotherly Love”. During church the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons are friendly toward each other but as soon as they leave the church they go back to killing each other. He also has satire in the speech that Shepburn gives to the mob. “Because they’re afraid the man’s friends will shoot them in the back, in the dark-and it’s just what they would do”(Twain 146). Twain is being satirical about people who will act friendly to someone’s face but then they turn around and stab them in the back. Most people are to scared to say what they feel face to face. He is suggesting that it’s in everyone’s nature to avoid conflict and judge