Humor and sarcasm are great tools Mark Twain used in his book to reveal various aspects of Southern American life and characteristics of human beings. By satirizing certain concepts about people, Twain leaves an even bigger impression on the readers about the various themes of the novel. One thing I found funny was the whole mob mentality idea that Twain describes throughout the course of Huck’s travels to different parts of the South on the river.
One such example of this can be seen in chapter 21- this is after Huck and Jim meet the duke and the king- when they encounter a small town on their way down the “State of Arkansaw.” The townspeople are poor and Huck refers to them as “loafers.” As you read on Twain describes how these people love violence, where people get excited and gather around to check out a dog fight just to see which one would die. As the day goes on and the townspeople get drunker, Boggs, a person from the town comes around and says that he’s going to kill Mr. Sherburn, the wealthiest man there, and in the end Mr. Sherburn, sick and tired of Bogg’s incessant cursing and insults, shoots him dead. The townsfolk, who were already so excited from fight, retelling it to everyone they meet, get even more excited when on of them suggests hanging Mr. Sherburn. The whole town gathers up to do the hanging, pulling clotheslines every which way to do the handiwork, and reach Mr. Sherburn’s house. I thought it was really funny and pretty unfortunate how ignorant people could be and how excited they get from things so morbid. Death and violence aren’t fun- on the contrary, they are sad and unpleasant. It was interesting how people give up their consciences and capabilities in deciding right from wrong, and instead choose to follow the ignorance of one person.
Another example of such a mob mentality can be seen during the coffin scene in chapter 29. The duke and the king make up their own tattoo on Peter Wilks’s body, while the two new guys have their own, and all the people in the town decide to dig the body up to decide who is right and shout out "hooray!" Everyone grabs their own shovel in the excitement to dig up one coffin, and forgets lanterns. Then they decide to lynch the ones that are wrong and their excitement grows even more. It is in all this chaos that Huck manages to escape to go back to Jim. Twain’s use of humor in both scenes really poked fun at Southern humanity and civilized nature, and Huck’s naiveté enhanced each telling.
posted by Prabjot K.
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I agree that Mark Twain des a god job of using humor and sarcasm in order to depict the people living in the south during this time period. I wonder if they are really as stupid and drunk as Twain says. It gives the idea that the southern states were really uncivilized.
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