Mark Twain Huckleberry Finn

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The Use of Satire as Racial Commentary in Mark Twain Huckleberry Finn
Introduction
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a fictional novel written by Mark Twain and publish back in 1884 talks of Jim and Huckleberry Finn and their journey down the Mississippi river in the United States. It is worth noting that Jim is an African-American adult who escaped from the miseries of slavery and is trying his level best to attain personal freedom (Twain 11). On the other hand Huckleberry is 13 years old Caucasian male who throughout his life has acknowledged that the issue of slavery and racism is natural and those fighting it are wicked. However after the two became friends, Huck decided to help Jim to escape to gain freedom. It is worth noting that the desire of Jim to escape from slavery is as a result of the rumor he had his care taker say. Miss Watson, Jim care taker was planning to sell him for $800, this terrified him. The author paints Jim as one individual who feel pain when the thought of being separated from his family strikes him, this contributed to his thoughts of escaping from slavery (Twain 34).
The love he depicts towards his family left Huck puzzled making the later realize that even back people have strong love for their families just like the whites. The novel is full of examples depicting the themes of slavery and racism. Mark Twain has used irony, satire, and subtlety to make his case. It is the aim of this paper to critically examine the use of satire as racial commentary in the novel. According to Connery & Combe, 23 artists are successfully employing the concept of satire to make their points as well as entertain their audience. Ideally satire has been thought of as a genre in literature where vices, follies, social ills, shortcomings, ridicule among others are presented in a funny way with the aim to shame perpetrates with the ultimate goal of improving the entire society. It is worth mentioning that despite the fact that satire should be funny the primary objective of its use is to criticize society in a constructive manner. Major characteristics of satire include irony as well as sarcasm (Connery & Combe 18).
Use of satire as racial commentary in Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain has managed to usefully use satire while making commentaries concerning racism and slavery. By employing this technique Twain tells the audience a story that is not only entertaining, but also socially significant and relevant mainly concerning racism and slavery. At the time of writing the novel, the concept of slavery was heavily associated with the black. Satire is evident from chapter one of the novel. Twain clearly shows readers that Huck who was a Caucasian boy together with Tom Sawyer got $6,000 each after finding stash of gold hidden in a cave by robbers. The money was banked where it gained a dollar interest per day.
A widow called Douglas adopted Huck with the aim of ‘sivilizing’ him but one can argue that the motive behind the adoption is the $6,000 the young lad has in his account. It is satirical since the white despised the Caucasian and the black to a great extend. Ironically Huck could not tolerate Douglas ‘sivilization’ and he opted to get back to his old ways of putting on rags and sleeping outside public places. To him ‘sivilization’ is characterized heavily with mistreatment of the slaves (Bowers, 22). Before leaving it is evident that the widow did not approve of Huck smoking, however he allows him to use snuff (drugs) which she uses made from tobacco. It was Miss Watson and Douglas who worked towards changing Huck way of live. In one instance where Miss Watson told Huck about hell a very bad place where bad people will go, Huck blurts that he wish to go to hell even after being told about the good place, heaven, Huck decided not to change his ways since he is not bothered to go to the good place (Twain 29).
As suggested by Railton, 12 Twain has also managed to sarcastically talk about the manner in which the African-Americans talk or their dialect. For instance when Jim was talking with Huck about his family particularly with regards to his daughter and how he realized she was deaf, the use of the terms ‘shet de do’ is used to show that this group of people are use vulgar language (Connery & Combe 18). The term is supposed to mean shut the door and African-Americans are found of twisting words. This was used to demean the way the black communicate with each other although in a satirical manner considering that Jim was looked at by his daughter after he told her to shet de do. It is also worth mentioning that the major characters in the novel are individuals from the lowest social class usually associated with the black and slaves (Railton 47).
Twain has used the concept of class and culture to show prejudice among the blacks. Twains not only uses language and dialect to emphasize the idiosyncrasies of this group but also their dressing as well as social behaviors. It is usually the social class as well as the cultures that shape the behaviors of both the slaves and their masters. It is easy for one to mistake his artists skills for a shaming a given group of members of the society, however, Twain main intention was to make the readers see as well as understand how others view the major characters as well as the role played by class status dictates their experiences as well as treatment of other people especially of lower social class. This can explain in part why the novel has been banned several times in the UK and US history (Jarnow, 175).
Other section where the novel talks about racism is chapter 32 where Twain says "We blowed out a cylinder-head." / "Good gracious! anybody hurt?" / "No'm. Killed a *n______." / "Well it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt." (Twain 267). This shows that Huck did not care too much about niggers, a term used to refer to African-Americans. The statement is indeed confusing considering Huck’s feelings for Jim. To Huck the killing of a nigger is not a sad thing. He stat...