Huck FinnNotes chapters 17-29

SatireWriting that ridicules the weaknesses or

wrongdoings of individuals, groups, institutions or humanity in general. The object is to influence moral standards.

The Feud: How is it satirized?

Shepherdsons & Grangerfords go to church (together) but take their guns (irony)

They hear a sermon on brotherly love, then fight

The Feud—Satire

They’re Southern aristocracy—which Twain is also making fun of

They fight for the “family name,” but there’s no family left by the end of the last fight

Actions are counter to common senseLove between kids should bring peace, but instead

brings warIt’s especially absurd because the families admire

one anotherShows senseless brutality and needless slaughter

Satire—Southern GentilityGrangerfords are Southern gentility/aristocracy

They have a big house, money, and show Huck hospitality, but own slaves…

So what is Twain saying?

Satire—Lynching Bee Title is ironic—lynching rather than spelling Colonel Sherburn shoots Boggs, then gives speech

convincing mob to disperse "The idea of YOU lynching anybody! It's amusing. The idea of you thinking

you had pluck enough to lynch a MAN! Because you're brave enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out women that come along here… The average man's a coward. In the North he lets anybody walk over him that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it. In the South one man all by himself, has stopped a stage full of men in the daytime, and robbed the lot… The average man don't like trouble and danger. YOU don't like trouble and danger. But if only HALF a man -- like Buck Harkness, there -- shouts 'Lynch him! lynch him!' you're afraid to back down -- afraid you'll be found out to be what you are -- COWARDS -- and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that half-a-man's coat-tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big things you're going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's what an army is -- a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any MAN at the head of it is BENEATH pitifulness. Now the thing for YOU to do is to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a hole.”

What does this show? Twain’s contempt for humanity en masse—crowds, mobs, juries, councils, etc.…

Twain believes in the strength of the individual, not in groups.

Also shows that men can behave like animals in a pack—strength in numbers can sometimes lead to individual cowardice (“bystander effect”)

Scene undermines the myth of “Southern bravery”

SymbolismOf the river/ raft:

Freedom, laizness, noble grandeur, an escape from “civilized society” and its brutality

Huck says: “…for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be satisfied, and feel right and kind toward others.” (this is also Twain’s moral view of life)

River also brings danger, though—the Walter Scott brush with danger, the steamboat crash, the slave hunters, the duke and king…

Dr. Robinson:

Represents sanity & intelligence—individual man who reasons and thinks for himself

IronyIn Huck: he lies, steals, is dirty, and uneducated,

and smokes, but is a genuinely good person

Of church sermon: families take guns to church and no one “hears” the sermon

In Jim: he’s supposedly the “worst” person because he’s a slave, but is truly good.A father figure to Huck—watches over himHe’s humanized by his own family dynamic (story

of daughter & quest to buy family’s freedom)