In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, what are some examples of satire in chapters 35 and 36?

Satire is the use of irony and humor to criticize some aspect of society. Twain uses satire often throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnto criticize, for example, the South’s treatment of slaves, blind acceptance of religion, and hypocrisy. In chapters 35 and 36, Tom and Huck are trying to devise a plan to to free Jim, the slave who is chained up in a hut at the Phelpses. Huck points out that saving Jim...

Satire is the use of irony and humor to criticize some aspect of society. Twain uses satire often throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to criticize, for example, the South’s treatment of slaves, blind acceptance of religion, and hypocrisy. In chapters 35 and 36, Tom and Huck are trying to devise a plan to to free Jim, the slave who is chained up in a hut at the Phelpses. Huck points out that saving Jim should be easy (Jim is chained to a bed that isn’t bolted to the ground), but Tom, always wanting to do things like they do in the adventure books, insists that they make it more difficult. He eventually suggests that they “saw Jim’s leg off” (239). When Huck protests, Tom gives in and says it would be useless anyway, because

Jim’s a n*****, and wouldn’t understand the reasons for it, and how it’s custom in Europe (239).

Clearly, Tom’s idea is ridiculous, and Huck, though uneducated, is able to see the impracticality of Tom’s plan. Huck doesn’t understand why Tom wants to make things so difficult when they could easily lift the bed up, free Jim, and take him away on the raft. Here, Twain seems to be criticizing both the kind of literature Tom gets his ideas from, but also the idea that many people in the South (represented by Tom) saw their slaves as property, things to use for their own benefit. Tom doesn’t really care for Jim’s well-being; he just wants to use the circumstances as material for another one of his wild adventures. Huck, on the other hand, has formed a relationship with Jim and truly wants to do what he can to get Jim free. He goes along with Tom’s plans, which get more ridiculous as the chapter goes on, because Tom acts like an authority on the matter, but he questions everything along the way. When the two boys eventually realize their outlandish plans are impractical, they decide it’s acceptable to just pretend they’ve done everything according to how it’s done in the adventure books. Huck ironically reflects that Tom is “full of principal” (246) because he tries so hard to do things the “right” way, when really Huck is the one who is “full of principal,” focused only on getting JIm free, not on the adventure that doing so involves.