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Joe Bikini Mark Twain s Feelings Towards Southern Aristocracy (As Seen In The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn) Mark Twain, (Samuel Clemens), is credited with many great works. One of these works is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This book tells of a boy who is a mischief-maker but is basically very well mannered and turns out to be quite the moral human being. Although he sometimes struggles with society s hold on him and what they have drilled into his head from day one about slaves and everything, he winds up making the correct moral decisions for himself and his friend, Jim.
Throughout the book Mark Twain, through the innocent eyes of Huckleberry Finn, pokes fun at southern aristocracy and puts it down in a very intelligent manner. He doesn t come right out and say what he thinks about southern aristocracy, he does it very gradually with comments throughout the text. The way he does it, people that have no clue what he is talking about will not understand that he is actually putting down southern aristocracy, (as it was in the time frame of the book). Mark Twain s feelings towards southern aristocracy are not very pleasant ones. One could go as far as saying that he hated them because: 1) He pokes fun at them throughout The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn and, 2) He wrote a book that was totally against their mentality and still managed to have everyone like it. He purposely made sure he did this through the innocent eyes of Huckleberry Finn.
One way Mark Twain shows how he feels about southern aristocracy is by poking fun at them throughout the entire book. He has little comments scattered throughout the text that let the reader know, (if they understand it), exactly how he himself feels about southern aristocracy. Mark Twain does this in such a way as to not alienate his aristocratic readers, but to keep them thinking about what he wrote. If Twain came right out and said what he wanted to he would have gotten many less readers to his book. Also, Huckleberry Finn would not have been as good a book. It is the sarcasm that makes the book humorous and fun to read.
Some people call his book racist, because the word nigger is seen over two hundred times. Ralph Ellison states: Huckleberry Finn knew, as did Mark Twain, that Jim was not only a slave but a human being (and) a symbol of humanity and in freeing Jim, Huck makes a bid to free himself of the conventionalized evil taken for civilization by the town in other words, of the abomination of slavery itself. (Racist pg. 2) The thought that Huckleberry Finn was a racist book has a lot to do with the way people saw, and still see, his book. They now understand more of what he did, and are very upset. Beside the fact that almost all people get upset when they hear or see the word nigger, the fact that Twain makes fun of southern people makes them even more displeased. Even if he didn t use the word nigger so many times, people, being smarter now as compared to when the book was written, would still be angry at it. However, when it was written and up until a few decades ago, it was just a good piece of well-written literature.
The way in which Twain represents his ideas about southern aristocracy makes one think about what they are reading before they can make a sound judgment. However, as someone from Barron s states: Huckleberry Finn is a satire of the American South in the nineteenth century. Slavery is its main target, but it attacks many human traits and institutions. As likable as he is, even Huck is the object of satire, especially his attitude toward blacks. (Barrons pg. 3) The fact that Huck is a part of the satire is very true. Although this is a very small factor in the book, while southern aristocracy, (and the way they act), is the main thrust of his prodding.
Huck s ignorance is what Mark Twain uses in his satire. He also makes fun of Huck s ignorance at some points in the book. Also, when Huck wrestles with his conscience about telling on Jim, he fits exactly into place with the southern social convention. Fortunately, he breaks free of that way of thinking. Also, he makes the decision that he will burn in the fiery depths of Hell rather than turn in his friend Jim. This demonstrates his ignorance about slavery.
Even though he is in the south and slavery was the only way of life, Huck should have learned in school the opinions of others who opposed slavery. His ignorance makes him believe that going against social convention will toss him into the flames of Hell. Another way that Mark Twain shows how he feels about southern aristocracy in the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is how he wrote a book totally against their way of life, and he still managed to have all his readers like the book. He did this through the eyes of the lovable Huckleberry Finn, the main character, a boy who was probably about thirteen or fourteen years old in the book. This is an ingenious thing that Mark Twain did.
If his main character had been a little older, say about sixteen or seventeen, then the book would have been seen for what it was really about, a mockery of southern aristocracy and everything they stood for. Beside the joke factor, Huck makes some ignorant remarks about southern aristocracy. This is seen in one place, (out of many in the book), in chapter seventeen of the book where Huck is thinking to himself and this comes out: Col. Grangerfords was a gentleman, you see. He was a gentleman all over; and so was his family. (Huck pg. 79) And also, when he is having a conversation with Buck: Did you want to kill him, Buck? Well, I bet I did.
What did he do to you? Him? He never done nothing to me. Well, then, what did you want to kill him for? Why nothing only it s on account of the feud. (Huck pg. 81) Now, these two statements are very important to understanding just how Mark Twain worked on putting down southern aristocracy.
He starts with Huck describing Col. Grangerfords and his whole family as being gentlemen all over, well born, and so on and so forth. Then he starts getting into the fact that the Shephardsons and the Grangerford's have had a feud going on for a very long time. So long ago that Buck states that he doesn t know what it is about, and that maybe his parents do. Now, would gentlemen be fighting over something for so long that no one even knows why it started?
Of course not, they would resolve their issue and live in peace. This is part of Mark Twain s genius, just reading through the book, the reader would think nothing of it. However, upon closer examination, one would pick up the significance of the statements made about the Grangerford's. Also, since Huck is still in the years where he is not expected to know too much about moral issues, he just kind of lives his life by what he thinks is right or wrong, the reader goes on oblivious, not thinking anything about what he or she just read. That is the beauty part of the book. That is how Mark Twain got away with writing this book without having threats made on his life.
Since Huck is not likely to know much about what makes or breaks gentlemen, or anything for that matter, the reader just thinks that it is a cute comment about people he adores for taking him in. However, had Huck been just a little bit older, also with that, be of sound mind and judgment about what feuds really are, the reader would catch something that is out of the norm. An older boy, who was pretty much fully developed into living in the south and what it meant, who tried to find a concrete reason in why the feud was going on between the Grangerford's and Shephardsons, without just accepting it and joining the Grangerford's in their quest to hunt out and destroy the Shephardsons, would be weird. Not normal at all. Since Huck is not really that old, and therefore is not yet fully grasping what being a southern citizen, in the case of this book, a southern aristocrat, means, it is not overly odd that he is stupefied by what the Grangerford's and Shephardsons are doing to each other.
This is the smartest thing that Mark Twain could have done in writing a book like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because it, as I have stated throughout the paper, leaves the normal reader oblivious to the fact that he hates southern aristocracy and what they stand for. In the words of Huckleberry Finn, at the end of his book: and so there ain t nothing more to write about, and I m rotten glad about it, because if I d a know what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn t a tackled it and ain t again to no more. (Huck pg. 220) Some think that this statement is the ending that Mark Twain wrote as a sigh of relief for finally having finished Huckleberry Finn, which took him seven years to complete. This is the ending that I am choosing as well for the same reason as Mark Twain might have. The way Mark Twain showed his abhorrence towards southern aristocracy are: 1) He pokes fun at them hroughout The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn and, 2) He wrote a book that was totally against their mentality and still managed to have everyone like it. He purposely made sure he did this through the innocent eyes of Huckleberry Finn.
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