The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a true American classic. Twain creates a tremendous story about a boy, Huck, and a slave, Jim, who together overcome obstacles, and eventually reaches their goals. Along the way, Twain satirizes the south on a wide scope of values. In this paper I will be covering how Mark Twain satirizes "civilized" society, religion, and ignorance of the south in his classic novel, The Adventures of Huck Finn.
Twain wrote a lot about the south, most of it was to inform people, but at the same time satirizing it. Twain sees the south calling themselves civilized, but when really they are not. He is saying that people should be out and about, doing jobs or services for each other, and cleaning the place up, so it looks like a real civilized society, which the south was not doing. Twain describes how pathetic the town is, when they are pushing out Native Americans out of the way calling them uncivilized, when they them themselves think that they are civilized just because they live in a house. They are watching dogs on fire for entertainment, which is really sad, but somewhat funny to imagine, which is how Twain used satire to show the weakness of the society in the south.
Twain saw a lot of room to explore religion in the south as well. He was seeing people saying they were going to church every Sunday, saying they were religious, but right after church, they go and do anything they want, even if it contradicts with what they just heard about in church. Twain is saying that people should go to church because they want to live a good life, not because they want to show that they go church, just so they can say they go to church. In the story about the Sheperdsons, and Grangerfords, going to chuch and listening to preacher about brotherly love, and then after the sermon, going kill each other. This example of religious hypocrisy, people should be acting on their religion, not just turning their backs on it, and in the end it would lead them to a better life.