Huck Finn Comedy
In the novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, Huck Finn is exposed to the greed and conformity in society as his adventures take him across many ridiculous characters and twisted plots. These characters and plots synthesize in order to turn the novel into a form of high comedy, specifically satire. Mark Twain utilizes Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a comedic satire on the ridiculous greed and conformity inherent in Southern society ultimately to reveal that men have selfish motives and lack independent thinking when they conform.
Huck Finns experiences with the duke and the king are meant to be a portrayal of how men selfishly take advantage of others out of greed and how in a racist society, people give up the freedom to think and act on their own. When the opportunity arises to get a hold of a large sum of money, the duke and the king turn to fraud; for example, they impersonate Peter Wilks two brothers who are supposed to inherit a large sum of money by acting as an English preacher and a dumb-and-deaf man (Twain 175). Twain utilizes wit for the two men are characterized to be clever and mischievous, the catalyst for their fraud. However, this is to show how out of greed, these men use their intelligence to take advantage of the innocence of others, specifically Mary Jane and the other girls, to make gains in their personal interest. When travelling with Jim, Huck argues with him about the French Language and says “I see it warnt no use wasting words- you cant learn a nigger to argue. So I quit” (90). In the argument, Huck compares speaking French to a cat meowing which is meant to be a juxtaposition of Hucks supposed intelligence and Jims stupidity. Hucks racist attitude which leads him to see Jim unequally is a result of him being raised in a racist society which teaches him that blacks are inferior to whites.