Humour and satire are important themes in much of Twain's work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire
Huck is portrayed as uneducated he does not understand the full significance
of the events he describes and comments on. Huck is not intentionally unreliable; his lack of
education and experience makes him so. Much of the humor in the first chapters comes from Huck’s
incomplete understanding of the adults around him and their “sivilized” ways.
However this humour emphasises the hypocrasy and double standards of many of these adults.
Twain uses humour and to draw the readers attention to the many situations and conditions that he finds repugnant.
By this use of humour he is able to highlight the characters, and thier flaws so to speak.
The chapter where Huck asks about a feud (Grangerfords and the Sheperdsons) is a good example
so the descripition given is humorous, but in Twains time feuds between families and extended families were a fact of life.
Satire, another element in Twains writing, occurs many times throughout his novel as well. A convincing example of satire occurs in the first chapter when Huck says, “y and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then everybody was off to bed” (5). This pokes fun at the fact that Miss Watson tries to become a better Christian and a better person but still owns slaves and considers them property. Another satisfactory example of satire occurs when Pap becomes outraged at the thought of a black man having the opportunity to vote. However, the black man actually has more education than Pap
Even though Huck spoke English pretty well, he often used slang when speaking throughout the novel. At one point in the novel Huck says, “…we was always naked day and night, whenever the mosquitoes would let us- the new clothes Buck’s folks made for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn’t go much on clothes, nohow.” Twain used Huck, the main character, in order to show what speech and conversation would sound like and how it would be spoken by a 13 year old boy from Missouri who was from a lower class and was uneducated. In doing this, Twain allowed the reader to understand the language Huck spoke and his perspective on life and society. Interestingly, throughout the novel both Huck and Jim show many examples of eye dialect. John Algeo and Thomas Pyles define eye dialect as “the representation of standard pronunciations by unconventional spellings, like duz for does.” Several examples of eye dialect seen in the novel are: ghost/ ghos, sivilized/civilized, wisht/wished, ole/old, doan/ don’t, ‘kase/ cause, dat/that, git/get, for’rard/forward, fool’n/ fooling and countless other examples.
Huck’s voice, combined with Twain’s satiric genius, changed the shape of fiction in America, and African-American voices had a great deal to do with making it what it was.
Hope this helps.
Andy
