Mark Twain Essays Satire

During this time stereotypes of black people was common in the white society.Twain satirizes white society stereotypes in an attempt to tactfully ridicule society.Throughout the book, Twain uses various situations to mock the beliefs of religion.

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Throughout the novel, Twain uses Huck to satirize the religious hypocrisy, white society’s stereotypes, and superstitions both to amuse the reader and to make the reader aware of the social ills of that present time.

One of the main victims of Twain’s satire is Religion.

Twain writes, “Some think old Finn done it himself… most everybody thought it at first.

He’ll never know how nigh he come to getting lynched.At first, Huck rejects most of Jim’s superstitions as silly, but at last he comes to be grateful for Jim’s deep knowledge of the world.One point at which Twain mocks superstition is when Tom plays a trick on Jim as he sleeps, hanging his hat above him on a tree.Through the book, Twain uses Jim to describe many examples of superstitions.Jim discusses a great variety of superstitions from the time Huck meets him on Jackson’s Island until the end of the novel.The feud has gone on so long that neither of them knows why or how it started.Additionally, these men go to church to pray to God and when they’re done, they go out and kill each other.In the beginning of Huck and Jim’s journey Huck thinks of Jim as different from him.He expresses this when he says, “when we was ready to shove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it was pretty broad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with a quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger a good ways off.” (Twain 51) Here, Huck wrongly assumes that people can spot a black person form great distance.Twain uses Jim tactfully to illustrate the fact that dark colored people are just as intelligent as light colored people.Finally, Twain also uses satire when he writes of the rumor of Huckleberry’s supposed death.