Satire 2
We’ve spent a lot of time exploring satire in class lately. As I read Huck Finn I noticed a few different forms of satire relating to politics, and commonly race and religion. In one scene Huck is looking in on a Sunday sermon. Twain uses Huck’s description of the sermon to discretely make fun of it. Huck talks about how many people are sleeping or spacing out during the ceremony and don’t really seem into it. It seems like Twain is often portraying religion as something silly few people take seriously. There was another moment when Huck was debating whether or not he should turn Jim in that I noticed satire relating to racism and slavery. Huck was thinking that he should really turn Jim in because he felt bad for Miss Watson. I remember him telling himself that she never did anything to him and didn’t really deserve losing her slave. But it’s pretty obvious that Miss Watson did do something; she was enslaving a human being. Then Huck goes on to talk about how Jim was so nice to him and he felt bad turning him in. This whole internal debate within Huck shows how distorted slavery made society. I think this was a small but strong example of satire.
