How Does Twain Use Satire In Huckleberry Finn

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American humorist, Mark Twain, in his classic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, narrates the adventures of a boy named Huckleberry Finn, and a runaway slave, Jim, that takes place down the Mississippi River in the nineteenth century. Through their adventures, Twain uses satire to critique the superstitions of the Southerners. His purpose is to expose the absurdity in Southerners’ use of their superstitions to blame bad occurrences on their superstitions. By utilizing exaggeration, sarcasm, and humor, Twain is successfully able to explain how human nature tends to attribute things for the wrong reasons. As Huckleberry Finn opens, Twain employs exaggeration to present the Southerners’ way of using their superstitions to avoid ‘bad …show more content…
“Jim always kept that five-center piece around his neck with a string and said it was a charm the devil gave him with his own hands… Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that five-center piece…” (Twain 10). African Americans, who lack education and logic to determine right or wrong at the time being, use their superstitions to open up new ways of thinking. However, Tom Sawyer, “Afterward Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the state, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it” (Twain 6). Jim, who is webbed to the superstitious world, believes that he is a victim of the witches’ magic. Since it is apparent that it was Tom who hung the hat on the limb, Tom is able to deceive Jim using use his own superstitions zeal against him. Twain furthermore reveals how slaves use their superstitions to explain things that are out of their understanding.
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the author Mark Twain applies satirical tone in order to ridicule people’s way of using their superstitions. In criticizing the superstitions of the Southerners using exaggeration, sarcasm, and humor, Twain reveals the absurdity of the Southerners’ beliefs and how minor things can affect their choices
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