In Mark Twain's classic, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, satire abounds. As he humorously criticizes religion, Twain often focuses on the hypocrisy of the "good Christians." In one instance, Huck relates how the Widow Douglas coerces him into going to church, she teaches him Bible verses, and chastises him severely for smoking even though, as Huck relates,
...she took snuff, too; of course, that was all right because she done it herself.
In another instance, when Huck stays with the Grangerfords, the men attend church, but bring their guns, symbolic, of course, of violence and murder.
Further in the novel, the Dauphin easily deceives the religious crowd of mourners in Chapter XX. After the preacher cries out,
Oh, come to the mourners' bench! come, black with sin! (amen!) come, sick and sore! (amen!)...
With hilarious irony, the king responds to the call and asks the preacer if he can be allowed to speak. Then, he fabricates a story of how he has been a pirate, but now he is a changed man thanks to a preacher in a tent in Pokeville, "the truest friend a pirate ever had!"
When the king feigns tears, "so did everybody." The so easily emotionally swayed crowd cries. Then someone "sings out,'Take up a collection!'" And, another encourages with "Let him pass the hat around!" Thus, in this instance, Twain satires the unthinking and religious fools that are so easily swayed and duped by one of the greatest hypocrites of the novel.
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