Satirical Analysis Of Huckleberry Finn

In chapter thirty one of Mark Twain's “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, the protagonist is forced to make a decision based on the morals of life, marking a turning point in the entire novel. Huck’s decision ends the moral struggle that has perplexed him throughout the novel, also affecting the civilization he had acquired under the roof of the Widow Douglas. Huck’s final decision also depicts Twain's satire of the antebellum South, which reveals that a young , immature boy is able to do something morally correct when all the forces of civilization are trying to push him in the other direction.
After making a tenacious attempt to escape the clutch of the Duke and King, Huck returns to an empty raft, causing Huck to become weary of his actions. …show more content…
The satire shows that an uneducated person can do something that the educated can’t. Huck doesn't belong to many social groups in power, yet he is able to make a decision which is incapable in any other. This mocks adults, along with the educated, for it shows that the young and uneducated can do what the educated can’t, which is Twain’s satirical moral of the …show more content…
Ever since Huck was taken in by the Widow Douglas, he was taught how to be “civilized”. She even attempts to teach him how to pray, but Huck is conflicted by the idea of praying, for he doesn’t see any value if the things he prays for don’t come, as Huck states in chapter 3, “She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn’t so”(19). He can’t seem to find the words to pray to Providence, so instead he attempts to write them in a letter, but fails in doing so. His conscious perceives that slavery is wrong, and that Huck will go to Hell for stealing Miss.Watson’s slave. Therefore, he makes the final decision to free Jim from slavery, and tears up the letter, “It was a close place. I took it up and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sor of holding my breath, and then says to myself: All right,then, I’ll go to hell-and tore it up.”(215)This moment marks the failure of the forces of civilization, for his decision to save Jim shows that a white boy is willing to sacrifice his own life for a black slave in the deep south, which conflicts the beliefs of many. Huck distinguishes Jim's life no less important than his, which contradicts the beliefs of the antebellum south, for he realizes that the way white people treat