Chapter 27 vs. 28

In Chapter 27, the concept of dark humor is shown at the funeral because there are hints at satire relating to death, especially when Huck says, "there warn't no more popular man in town that what the undertaker was." This chapter has a number of hints at dark humor whereas in chapter 28, the tone changes to something lighter. This chapter focuses a lot on the compassion of Mary Jane. Also, Huck learns a lot in this chapter about the humanity of slaves when he sees how Mary Jane treats them. He slowly starts to learn about their dignity and that they are human too.

The Messy Morality of Huck's World

I noticed this in the part of the story where "the king" and "the duke" put on a show only to rip off their audience. It is fairly quickly made clear that the two frauds are not very good people; while they are not extremely evil or malicious, they are liars and cheaters who basically steal these people's money. Thus, we, as the reader, at first thing that the king and duke will be the "bad guys" of the story and the audience the poor, cheated "good guys". However, when the audience reacts not by warning the rest of the town of the scam, but by plotting to deceive the rest of the town into being ripped off as well. Thus, it would seem the audience members who have been tricked are just as selfish and immoral as the frauds who tricked them. I feel like this shows how in the world of Huckleberry Finn, there really is no set right or wrong, no "good guys" or "bad guys". There is not a strict moral code that everybody follows and the whole idea of right and wrong seems to be very messy and confusing, especially to a young kid like Huck.

Introducing Satire

When the Duke and Dauphin are introduced in chapter 19, the literary use of satire is also developed. From here on out, the Duke and Dauphin provide comical scenes throughout the course of the story. Huck has suspicions regarding their true identities but he still treats them as though they are royalty. The fact that they are actually con- artists shows a slight glimpse into the unusual class structure that the story contains because the raft becomes a social structure within itself.

Funny Convicts

In chapter 19 Huck agrees to give two strangers a ride on the raft. I was surprised by how easily they convinced Huck to give them a ride especially because they were in the South and Jim was still aboard the raft. Another surprise to me was how foolish Jim and Huck were to believe that these two admitted convicts were royalties. For example when the old man claims he is the heir to the king of France, "Yes, gentlemen, you see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin', exiled, trampled-on, and sufferin' rightful King of France" (79, online text). I think Twain may have thought the same way as Huck does and he maybe showing it in this scene.

Family Rivalry

In chapter 18, they talk about the family rivalry between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons. While i was reading this, I thought that it was ridiculous that they are still fighting and killing people from the other family 30 years after the original conflict. The two families have gone on fighting and killing people of the other family for so long. At a point in this chapter, Buck tries to shoot Harney Shepherdson. I was shocked when I was reading this because Harney did not do anything to Buck, he was just riding his horse. Even though there were a lot of things different back then, I would never have thought this would be happening between two families.

Apparently there is a special edition of Huck Finn that replaces every instance of the word "nigger" with "hipster".

"The Hipster Huckleberry Finn"

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