Use of Humor for Social Criticism in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain about the voyage of Huck, an uneducated lad, and Jim, a runaway slave. Despite the fact that Mark Twain is most recognized as a comedic author, he used humor throughout this book to precisely describe a range of challenges confronting American society at the time of novel composition. Some of the societal themes raised by Twain’s use of satire include slavery, religion, morality and class discrimination. The superficial nature of the humor invoked by satire goes away, and the audience’s eyes are opened as they see the necessity of social changes. Twain’s satire is mostly connected to highlighting faults and hypocrisies as they are applied to people, social institutions, and society. Huck and Jim encounter these kinds of flaws social institutions and frauds of perfect notions of ethical practices as they try to comprehend their own obligations in society. Twain hence uses satire and humor to generate a point of view where a clearly humorous journey represents a form of social criticism. The satire and humor, therefore, offers serious insights into humanity and the society, and it is also entertaining. The paper shall explore how Twain manages to use humor in the criticism of the social institutions.

Humor in the Southwestern Tradition

Humor that emerges in the novel is a typically Southwestern. The comic scenes surrounding the king and duke are perfect examples of the Southwestern humor for there was a tradition of such travelers swindling the yokels at camp meetings, horse trading, and fake shows. Through the exceptionally witty and humorist enterprise of the ’Royal Nonesuch’ Twain draws attention to the naiveté of the town folk. In spite of failing to understand the name of which the show is called, there are enticed into watching it by a single phrase’ women and youngsters not permitted a sentence that does not show the show has explicit content (Guerrero 271). Here Twain reveals the feebleness of human egos. When the crowd recognizes they were lied to, they want others to be fooled too. The scene is quite funny; Twain criticizes the weakness of the town folk.

Satirical Criticism of Conventional Christianity

Twain uses humor to mock the conventional Christianity. All through the novel, Twain try to show that religion is simply a waste of time. He reveals the contrast between the false impressions of a religious community who gullibly believe in book images of heaven and the realism of an inexperienced teenager who is sitted down and has a long deliberation before coming to a conclusion (Schmidt 75). The same incident shows the credulity of religious devotees... in this episode; the king deceives a whole evangelist assembly with a silly story of how to convert pirates. Twain deploys humor to leave the traditional Christian completely humiliated. He asserts that the leading character f the novel is not religious but is the one who conducts himself in a noble way (Central Mississippi Valley American Studies Association, and University of Kansas 5). The humor brings about the weaknesses of the conventional Christianity.

Criticism of Hypocrisy and Stupidity in Society

In the grangerfield episodes, Twain portrays the stupidity of pride in these scenes following the nasty grudge. When Buck to Huck how an old sheperdson killed a teenage boy, Huck criticizes it: ’I reckon the old man was a coward, Buck.’ Here a fine humor can be found. In a different instance, Huck states, ’He said they’d got across the river and was safe. I was glad of that, but the way Buck did take on because he didn’t manage to kill Harney that day he shot at him - I hain’t ever heard anything like it’.. (Twain 180) here a direct criticism in form of hypocrisy can be seen, but a little humor can be seen. The king and duke are perfect examples of hypocrites. The humor is combined with direct criticism.

Humorous Critique of Child Abuse and Family Dynamics

Another incident of humor is Huck and Pap interaction. Mark Twain addressed the issue of child abuse in this scene. Pap abused Huck several times and at some point even locks him up in a cabin. Pap attempts to steal Huck’s money and physically hurts Huck constantly which causes Huck to flee. Pap also disregards the idea of Huck going to school (Twain, Gerald and James 210). Twain uses humor in his descriptions of dealings between the two characters. For instance, the scene where pap agreed to change and stop taking alcohol but ended up being drunk and falling over is very humorous yet still tells a lot about his character Twain expresses the behavior of Pap to be irritating and showed a great dislike of it by creating a humorous image of the situation (Pearson 13). Humor maybe makes pap appear less sympathetic.

Criticism of Society and Civilization

Following the death of Bogg, the whole town was in turmoil. Twain describes the uncivilized life is better and morally superior. It was only Huck who was moved by the danger falling the drunken horse driver (Sloane 9). Twain here delves into social criticism without much humor. For instance, by exposing the silliness of Tom’s robber band, Twain mocks the pointlessness of book learning (Egan 9). This is extremely contrasted with the helpfulness as well as the applicability of Huck’s natural learning; he realizes pap’s visits by shoe mark on the snow and excludes the probability of the floating dead body being pap’s (Rossing 12). When Huck shows his yearning to travel west, ’But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adapt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.’ (Twain 215), Twain has offered his criticism on civilization. He has seen the insincerity, the heartlessness as well as the ugliness of the civilized community; hence his yearning to flee; stir up his moral pre-eminence to be untainted and unaffected by corrupt civilization (Schmidt 75).

Friendship, Slavery, and Hypocrisy

The other humorous episode appears in the story is on the plantation. Huck discovers that the Jim had been sold off by the king to the Phelps family, kindred of Tom Sawyer. The Phelps family think that when Huck goes to rescue his friend, Phelps family think that Huck is Tom Sawyer. When Tom met with Aunt Sally he “… [reaches] over and [kisses] Aunt Sally on the mouth” (219). This does surprise her and Tom states that he ”[thinks] [she] [likes] it” (219). Later on, Huck meets with Tom while heading to town and they cook up stories about their identities. They hatch a plan to free Jim. They utilize Jim as a prisoner and cause him to pass via jail fleeing clichés. When undertaking these rituals, he responds ‘I never knowed b’ fo’ ‘twas so much bother and trouble to be a prisoner’” (252). At last, although Tom states that Jim own himself, Twain employs humor as a means to insert realism to several instances. This episode actually talks about the issue of slavery (Rossing 12). Huck though white, does not let his Friend Jim suffer; he would rather go to hell than betray his friend. It was anti-Christian at the time. It is quite interesting and humorous that Christianity would protect slavery. These are some of the hypocrisies that Twain is trying to express in his novel (Debakcsy 60). The companionship between Huck and Jim is a sign of peace and brotherhood, the fundamentals of Christianity.

Conclusion

There are many themes in the novel, and Mark Twain manages to employ humor in communicating his ideas and the social injustices in the community.

Works Cited

Central Mississippi Valley American Studies Association, and University of Kansas. Journal of the Central Mississippi Valley American Studies Association. Vol. 1. University of Kansas., 1960.

Debakcsy, Dale. ”ALL RIGHT THEN, I’LL GO TO HELL... Mark Twain’s Unchained YEARS.“ The Humanist 76.3 (2016): 19.

Egan, Michael. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn: race, class and society. Chatto & Windus, 1977.

Guerrero, Lisa. ”Can I Live? Contemporary Black Satire and the State of Postmodern Double Consciousness.“ Studies in American Humor 2.2 (2016): 266-279.

Pearson, Norman Holmes. ”THE MARK TWAIN MEMORIAL IN HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT.“ Journal of the Central Mississippi Valley American Studies Association 1.2 (1960): 11-16.

Rossing, Jonathan P. ”A Sense of Humor for Civic Life: Toward a Strong Defense of Humor.“ Studies in American Humor 2.1 (2016): 1-21.

Schmidt, Barbara. ”Memorial Roster of Mark Twain Scholars.“ Mark Twain Journal 49.1/2 (2011): 73-91.

Sloane, David EE. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: American Comic Vision. No. 18. Twayne Pub, 1988. Lane, Lauriat. ”Why Huckleberry Finn Is a Great World Novel.“ College English 17.1 (1955): 1-5.

Twain, Mark, Gerald Graff, and James Phelan. ”Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.“ Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Macmillan Education UK, 1995. 27-265.

Twain, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. BPI Publishing, 1926.