The Humorous Devices in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

201610595, Michelle Bjerregaard

Tabish Khair
December 21st , 2016
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1835-1910) is a novel from 1884. The
novel follows the first-person narrator; young Huckleberry Finn, who escapes from his
problems at home and on the way, meets the also runaway slave Nigger Jim. Together they go
through an adventure down the Mississippi River in hopes to find a better place.

The novel explores the racial and moral world of its time, through the problems that
constantly surrounds it such as the slavery or child abandonment. The book itself is known for
its humorous ways to deal with the dark themes in it, and they contribute in many ways. The
humorous devices such as contradiction, irony, satire, and absurdity help the reader deal with
the so-called taboos of the 1900th. It’s easier to read or talk about taboos in a laughing matter;
this is called the relief theory as it is explained more thoroughly later in my paper. Philosophy
can also explain how these humorous devices can contribute, as Twain himself once said,
“Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete
with wisdom” (Clausen, Kaalund 9). I argue that these humorous devices are in fact, essential
to the novel and the main reason for its massive audience. The interpretation and recognition
is how it thanks to Twain’s use of satire and irony etc. In my paper, I will show that the
humorous devices employed by Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn contribute to the novel itself in a special way and help explore its major themes, such as
slavery and racism, and without them we would interpret the novel differently.
Huckleberry Finn, or Huck Finn, is a thirteen-fourteen year old boy from St. Petersburg in
Missouri. After his father, the local drunk, left town The Widow took it upon herself to raise
Huck Finn together with her sister Miss Watson. They were wealthy and owned a few slaves,
as it was ordinary in that time. When his father returns he kidnaps him, Huck Finn fakes his
own death. He then escapes and meets the runaway slave Nigger Jim whom used to belong to
Miss Watson. Together they leave from St. Petersburg for good and encounter several
difficulties and adventures throughout their journey down the Mississippi River. Repeatedly
forced to survive on their own, Huck Finn is very willing to come to his own conclusions
about important difficulties, even though they contradict society’s norms. Through this paper
I will focus on Mark Twain as a literary humourist and the humorous parts. I will also engage
the racist and immoral problems that occur throughout the novel. With these problems I will
also focus on the humorous devices: irony, contradiction, satire, and absurdity. Similar to the
humour I will likewise talk about a philosophical theory to humor called The Relief Theory.
The Relief Theory is the perfect philosophical theory to associate with Twain’s The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It’s centred on the idea that everyone has a bundle of taboos
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that we are not allowed to talk about (Clausen, Kaalund 11). When Twain published his novel
racism and slavery was most defiantly a taboo and not encouraged to talk about. The Relief
Theory says, “Whenever we are confronted with one of our taboos, we feel shame. Laughter
can deal with shame […]” (Clausen, Kaalund 11). Confrontation of taboos is obviously not
enjoyable and they build up inside, this theory gives to options on how the humour can help
with the shame of our taboos, “Think of the term ‘nervous laughter’ which occurs in
embarrassing situations where we are at loss of words. Laughing at death, for example, makes
it appear less intimidating and it allows us to relax” (Clausen, Kaalund 12)

An example of death actually occurs when Huck Finn meets Mrs. Phelps, Aunt Sally. She
mistakes him for her nephew Tom Sawyer, Huck then tells her one of his imaginative stories,
this time about a steamboat accident. He says it killed a black man as where Mrs. Phelps is
relived as no ‘people’ got hurt:
“It warn’t the grounding—that didn’t keep us back but a little. We
blowed out a cylinder-head.”
“Good gracious! anybody hurt?”
“No’m. Killed a nigger.”
“Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt […] (Twain 238).
In this quote Twain emphasizes the racism by having Mrs. Phelps give a satirist comment
about the dead black man, even though she’s grave serious This segment clearly has satirist
elements as well as racist, “Satire is often used when we want to criticize something or
somebody and make changes in society” (Clausen, Kaalund 24). Twain employs humor like
satire to reveal parts of society that he believed needed to be reformed. Of course the humor it
self isn’t the only factor; Huck Finn, a thirteen-fourteen year old boy as the first person
narrator also has a great impact on the audience of the novel. In chapter one Huck asked The
Widow if he can smoke as where she said “It was a mean practice and wasn’t clean […]”
(Twain 106). When The Widow then takes a hit of her own cigarette, “And she took a snuff
too; of course that was alright, because she done it herself” (Twain 106). She contradicts
herself by doing the exact opposite of what she just told Huck Finn. “It is often amusing when
people contradict themselves, and sometimes the way a character behaves may contradict
what he or she says […]” (Clausen, Kaalund 17). So the humorous part in this segment is The
Widow telling Huck Finn no to smoking, and then proceeds to take a hit of her own cigarette
right in front him. Contradicting herself and amusing the reader.
Another example of contradiction is The Widow’s sister Miss Watson, who teaches him in
religious beliefs and how to act properly to get into heaven. All this is ironic and
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contradicting, as Miss Watson owns slaves. (Twain 107-108). Owning slaves was of course
normal in that time but still a condemned against The Bible.
There are different types of irony, here we’re dealing with dramatic irony which is, “[…]
when a character’s words or actions indicate that he or she is unaware of something that the
audience or readers are aware of.” (Clausen, Kaalund 20). So to sum it up, Miss Watson
lectures Huck Finn on how to get into heaven while being unaware of her own wrongdoings
by owning slaves and will therefore not get into heaven herself.
One of Miss Watson slaves was as mentioned previous Nigger Jim whom Huck Finn
befriends. In chapter fourteen Huck Finn attempts to educate the slave Nigger Jim in the
French language. The need of multiple languages confuses Jim, and Huck’s attempt of
making him understand fails. He then claims Jim is just a nigger and therefore can’t be
educated:
“Well, den, she ain’t got no business to talk like either one er the
yuther of ‘em. Is a Frenchman a man?”
“Yes.”
“Well, den! Dad blame it, why doan’ he talk like a man? You answer
me dat!”
I see it warn’t no use wasting words—you can’t learn a nigger to
argue. So I quit. (Twain 153). The humorous device in this quote is called Absurdity. Despite
Huck Finn’s racist comment on not being able to educate a nigger slave, this segment is
especially funny because of Nigger Jim’s obliviousness. The racist comment given by young
Huck Finn is sort of forgotten due to the humor.
“ Absurd means meaningless, and absurd humor is a surreal kind of humor where you laugh at
the lack of coherence and the collision of completely incongruous elements.” (Clausen,
Kaalund 14). The absurdity in this scene is Nigger Jim not being able to comprehend the
different languages around the world and comparing it to a cow and a cat, where as to the
reader this is simple common knowledge (Twain 153). Even though Nigger Jim here is unable
to be taught something we think as simple, Huck Finn also mentions in same chapter how he’s
surprised by Nigger Jim’s intelligence in other aspects, “Well, he was right; he was most
always right; he had an uncommon level head for a nigger.” (Twain 153). Huck Finn being
surprised and baffled at Nigger Jim’s unexpected intellect, completely unaware of his
criticism towards his own intelligence is the ironic part of this scene. Although these quotes
have racist and immoral elements in them and humor to cover it up, Twain also added
comedic humor just for the readers’ entertainment alone. In chapter thirty-three when Tom
visits his Aunt Sally, also known as Mrs. Phelps. He kisses on the lips her as a reflex, it being
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completely normal for relatives to do so but completely forgetting he’s pretending to be

somebody else and therefore creates an awkward, yet humorous situation resulting in Aunt
Sally to yell at him:
[…] he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right
on the mouth, and then settled back again in his chair comfortable,
and was going on talking; but she jumped up and wiped it off with
the back of her hand, and says:
“You owdacious puppy!”[…] (Twain 242-243). This is just for humorous purposes only.
Even though the humorous devices contribute to the dark themes of the novel, Twain still
keeps the reader entertained with comedic humor such as the shown example above. The
obliviousness of Tom surprises Aunt Sally in an unsatisfactory way that from an outside point
of view makes it funny to the reader.
Twain is one of, if not the biggest author when it comes to American literature, “In Southern
Frontier Humour: An Anthology (2010), M. Thomas Inge and Ed Piacentino include Mark
Twain as “the only major American author to contribute to and emerge from the movement”
and frame him as “Its primary American literary heir” (xi.4).” (Piacentino 131).
The humor in his books are significant as it has been said Americans are not fond of irony as
mentioned in J.R Pole’s An Anatomy of American Irony, ‘"Don't use irony. They won't
understand it and if they do they won't like it," a journalist bound for New York was warned,
as she reported in a BBC interview.’
Yet Twain was able to employ such characteristics into his novel and with great succeed, as it
now is what we call ‘timeless’ and relatable for every age.
In overall I have shown examples from the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
containing racist or immoral elements which Twain chose to emphasize, satirize etc. with the
humorous devices, irony, satire, contradiction, and absurdity in Serious Business: Satire, Wit
and Humour.
Throughout this paper I have focused on the humor in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
while I also engage with the racial problems of the novel as well as the immoral ones. I
thereafter used The Relief Theory to explain why humor has the affect is has on these dark
themes. Furthermore I had a brief focus on Mark Twain as a literary humorist and how he’s
described in others perspective. I have given examples of racist and immoral segments and
scenes from the novel such as Mrs. Phelps comment on the dead black man, and Miss Watson
owning slaves. I commented on how irony, satire, contradiction, and absurdity have affected
these fragments and how Twain utilized humor to expose elements of society he means need
improvement.
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Argument
- Introduction to the novel (in depth)
- Short resume: say which parts of the novel I’m focussing on.
- Say which problems you’re engage with: racism and slavery
- Say which humorous devices you’re going to engage with as well: irony, sarcasm,
puns, satire and parody.
- Examples from the novel of racism and slavery
- Examples of how humor/humorous devices affect your examples.
- Example:
o Introduction to a portion of the book/resume of the scene
o Quote of racism, fx.
o Your opinion of how humor affects this scene
o Quote from humor book
o One sentence opsummering
o Next example…
- Citations throughout this
- Example quotation “Blah blah blah” (Twain 83).
- Opsummering
Conclusion
- Say what you just did
- Gave examples of negative things, and how humor affected
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- I’ve shown through my examples how Twain utilized humor to…

Works Cited
Pole, J. R. "An Anatomy of American Irony." Raritan: a quarterly review (Rutgers Univ., New
Brunswick, NJ) 24.1 (2004): 113. Web.

Høpfner Clausen, Bo, and Jesper Kaalund, eds. Serious Business: Satire, Wit and Humour: From
Shakespeare to Post-Modernism. 1. udgave ed. Kbh.: Gyldendal, 2011. Print.

Piacentino, Ed, ed. Southern Frontier Humor: New Approaches. Jackson: University Press of
Mississippi, 2013. Print.

Twain, Mark. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” The Norton Anthology of American
Literature Volume 2. Ed. Nina Baym. New York, London: Ww Norton & Co, 2013. 105- 281.
Print.