Examples Of Hypocrisy In Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain was a social critic as well as a novelist. He observed a society filled with arrogant, racial hypocrisy. Twain’s fictional novel, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” is far more than just an adventurous tale. Bringing criticism to the culture in which Twain has residence, Twain argues that society was covered in a veil of self-deception and religious leaders preached hypocritical and absurd religious values. Twain includes characters like the Widow Douglas, Miss Watson and Silas Phelps; all well-intentioned Christians, but their religion has deceived them into thinking that slavery is perfectly acceptable, and that slaves are something less than people. This arrogant and hypocritical belief system was something that Twain vigorously opposed—and he had a right to. Mark Twain includes supremely religious characters who are viewed as “morally correct” to expose the rawness of religious hypocrisy in a slave owning society. The Watson sisters are the most prominent examples of hypocrisy in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Early in the novel, Huck Finn observes that the sisters represent two

This chapter marks Huck’s return to civilization after a long absence. Like the Watson's, the Phelps family are devoted Christian, southern family who own slaves. They are not unlike the Watson family at the beginning of the novel. Mr. Phelps has bought Jim from the Duke to collect the reward money for him, and has locked him up in a shed. When Huck, Tom and Jim plot Jim’s escape Jim reveals to Tom that Mr. Phelps “come in every day or two to pray with him."(Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, p.419). Mr. Phelps is hypocritical since his reason to pray with Jim is that the he has no one else to pray with; he does not really care about Jim. This act by Mr. Phelps demonstrates the hypocritical nature of many of the deeply devoted slave