Satire in Huck Finn

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel of great acclaim, and great controversy. The work embodies ideologies of the day, utilizing satire to demonstrate the long and short of the institutions and ideas of the context, which Twain so colorfully creates and embellishes. Some argue that the satire is a poor guise for the demonstratively racist ideas that Twain does not counter in his statements about the world as he sees it.

Critics vilify Twain most often and most vehemently for his aggressive use of the pejorative term "nigger." Detractors, refusing to accept the good intentions of a text that places the insulting epithet so often in the mouths of characters, black and white, argue that no amount of intended irony or satire can erase the humiliation experienced by black children. Reading Huck Finn aloud adds deliberate insult to insensitive injury, complain some....
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