How Does Twain Use Satire In Huck Finn

In his novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain uses satire to criticize different aspects of society. The book follows an unruly boy named Huck and a slave named Jim throughout their adventures. During one episode, Huck lives with a wealthy family called the Grangerfords. While living with them, Huck is informed of a feud between the Grangerford family and the Shepardson family that had been going on for some 30 years. Over that time, many people from each family had been killed in the name of the feud. Shortly after Huck learns of this feud, Sophia Grangerford runs off to elope with Harney Shepherdson. After both families heard about this, they engage in a gunfight in which Huck escapes back to the raft with Jim. In this episode, Twain uses multiple satirical devices to criticize “civilized” society. Over the course of this chapter, Twain uses the satirical devices of hyperbole, irony, and travesty to mock “civilized” society. First, Twain uses hyperbole while Buck is explaining to Huck what a feud is. Buck illustrates, “A feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other man’s brother kills him; then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the cousins chip in—and by and by everybody’s killed off, and there ain’t no more feud. But it’s kind of slow, and takes a long time.” (82) This definition of a feud is …show more content…
This incident adds to Huck’s list of negative experiences he’s had in society. Huck comes to find that living on the raft, in the wild, is better than living in the backwards society in the South. Twain also exhibits how people will follow rules solely on tradition which was particularly relevant at the time as slavery and racism were accepted social institutions. In final analysis, Twain, using satire, is able to poignantly criticize Southern society and by doing so shed light onto some very important social