Examples Of Irony In Huckleberry Finn

Contrast and Irony in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn During the 19th century in Southern society, it was uncommon to find a white person who saw racism negatively or even dared to criticize its ways. Society was integrated with the feelings of racism and discrimination of blacks who most whites almost automatically saw as inferior. Rather than conform to these ways of society, Mark Twain, in his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, instead criticizes the racist nature he viewed in southern society during this time. Huck Finn, a young boy who ends up on a journey to find his true morals, begins in society in the care of the widow Douglas and Miss Watson, hypocritical slave owners who Huck soon escape. By escaping the constraining
Early on when Huck is still under the care and control of the widow Douglas and Miss Watson, Huck wants to smoke his pipe but the widow does not allow him to and claims “it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean, and I must try not to do it anymore” (Twain 16). Yet, only a few moments later, “she took a snuff too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself” (16). Huck may have been young and technically the widow and Miss Douglas were in charge of him, but just because they were to act as his guidance did not mean that their guidance was correct. In this scene, Twain criticizes the widow as a hypocrite because, while she will not allow Huck to smoke, she proceeds to take a “snuff”, another form of tobacco, only mere moments after. Through the use of Huck’s commentating, Twain demonstrates the irony supporting the supposed morals of the people of southern society such as the widow Douglas. By criticizing her, Twain also criticizes slave owners; he indirectly characterizes all slave owners as hypocritical in shaping the widow Douglas to be a prominent figure of this
Douglass, in addressing the lack of true independence throughout the nation, states, “I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common” (Douglass). Douglass, an abolitionist, focuses on the idea that while on the 4th of July whites celebrate their independence, blacks cannot as they continued to see restricted and as property of those same men. This controversy ran deep in the roots of racism, not just on a personal level. By directly targeting the widow Douglas, Twain forces the audience to generalize slave owners as hypocrites to better understand that the overall nature of racism is hypocritical; the United States is based on independence, so why should all people in the country not be independent as well? Twain uses this question to criticize the injustices that racism supported during this