Satire in the works of Mark Twain - Essay Example

Satire in the works of Mark Twain The use satire in the works of Mark Twain is perhaps most manifesting in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the manner in which it challenges the hypocrisy and cruelty of the American society. In this book, the author extensively employs the tool of satire to mock at ills of human nature, which lead them to commit atrocious and inhuman acts against others. Twain lampoons the American society’s condoning of slavery by exposing the inhuman nature of the practice.

In the character of Miss Watson, Twain seeks to demonstrate the fact that even the supposedly righteous people of the society are susceptible to vice. Miss Watson carries out her life as a devout Christian who values the sanctity of life and the value of fairness. However, she also keeps a slave by the name Jim. Satire is used to challenge the moral position of Christianity regarding slavery. Watson intends to sell Jim to other slave owners in New Orleans, which would subject him to ill-treatment and other inhuman practices.

The inhumanity of the act is seen in the manner in which Jim wrestles with the temptation to run away although holding high regards for his owner. The satirical element of this part of the book is that the hypocrisy within the American society as expressed at the time of Twain’s writing had no limits in terms of agents. Even the religious and presumably virtuous individuals were susceptible to its temptations.Twain uses satire to mock at the collapse of childcare in the American society. Huck chooses to break away from the care of the Widow Douglas in order to find freedom on the streets.

Life as a homeless child would be more precious than the kind of care he was receiving under the care of Widow Douglas, “..and so when I couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied,” (Twain 55). The society’s structure can no longer provide the kind of care that growing children would require in order for their proper upbringing. It is precisely because of this that Huck chooses to go to hell rather than live in a “heaven” of the society that enslaves his friend Jim, “All right then, I’ll go to hell,” (Twain 81).

In essence, the author seeks to demonstrate the fact that a society that gets increasingly materialistic risks to collapse if it does not attend to the welfare of its children population. Much of the ruin that afflicts the children results from this anomaly.Juvenile delinquency and truancy are equally captured in terms that bring out the element of satire in the text. For instance, Tom uses the idea of starting a bunch of robbers to entice Huck, “But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable,” (Twain 33).

However, the kind of delinquency illustrates a form of positive revolt against the society and its ills such as slavery, “Tom told me what his plan was, and I see in a minute it was worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a man as mine would,” (Twain 72). Twain uses satire to challenge the structural foundations in which social ills are founded. Works CitedTwain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Cherry Hill Publishing, 2012