Examples Of Hypocrisy In Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain has an interesting way of representing the hypocrisy in the society along the Mississippi River in 1885. Religion, Education and Slavery are just three of the points that Twain uses to get his point across to his audience. Despite the majority of the characters in this story thinking that they are good people, most of their actions go against the morals that they are trying to teach the younger generation.

The story of Huck and Miss Watson is interesting because she teaches him about religion even though her actions do not represent christianity well. This is interesting because Miss Watson is rude to Huck and treats him poorly, but then teaches him to be nice to everyone just like the bible says. ”Don’t gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry-why don’t you try to behave?”(Twain 15). This quote shows that even though Miss Watson acts all high and mighty in the way that she teaches Huck,

The hypocrisy behind slavery at this time was made known by fact that people who owned a slave saw them as nothing more than an object. We realize this when Jim explains why he ran away. He ran away because Miss Watson was going to sell him down in New Orleans. She was going to sell him just like an object instead of treating him like a person. ”... I hear old missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but she didn’ want to, but she could git eight hund’d dollars for me, en it’uz sich a big stack o’ money she could’ resis’.”(Twain 41). Miss Watson sold Jim for $800 without blinking an eye. The idea of the hypocrisy of slavery also relates back to the hypocrisy of religion. They are two very similar themes in the way that the bible teaches to treat everyone and everything equally because it is a creation of God. People in this society were willing to believe in the bible and God except for the part that says to treat people with respect. That is the definition of