Right now, Im on chapter 26 of Huckleberry Finn and I’m a little confused about how satire is used in this book. I label every so often when I think the sections that I’m reading are satire, but I don’t really understand Mark Twain’s intentions underneath the scene. For example, in chapter 22 when Huck sneaks into the circus, is that satire? Page 147,
“…by and by all hands dropped the reins, and every lady put her knuckles on her hips and every gentleman olded his arms, and then how the horses did lean over and hump themselves!”
I think Twain is using satire to explain the social event of the circus. Having Huck go to a circus for the first time, the readers have an idea of how silly it really is to have in a society. Also Huck exaggerates when describing what the women of the circus wear,
“…and every lady… looking just like a gang of real sure- enough queens, and dressed in clothes that cost millions of dollars, an just littered in diamonds.”
I think everyone knows that this stereo type of circus women is false. These women aren’t always that beautiful and surely do not wear extereemly expensive clothing. Maybe Twain wanted his readers to look at a circus in a different point of view.
Honestly, I don’t find this book to be all that funny, but the soliloquy in chaper 21 had an intention to be satire. When the Duke announces that he will perform Hamlet’s soliloquy for the one night “Shakesperean Spectacle,” he had no idea what the words to the real soliloquy were.
“To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin…”
The audience believed the act, which shows how a soceity can be brought into such tricks by companies looking for money. This relates to present day, as most of the public will believe almost anything they read or hear, as long as it sounds liek an official source.
I have labeled many other instances of satire in the book, but I really need a clearing up of how satire is used in this book.

The discussion that we had in class today left me thinking about how much I need to catch up on my current events. Near the end of our dicussion, Mr. Olmstead added that if you as any political figure what the most fignificant event in the middle east is, they would say the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. The article we read was imformative but was not entirely persuasive that the Israeli- Palestinian conflict is a major issue. Basically, the United States must first deal with Arab- Israeli conflict before tyring to transform Iraq. The article says, “The United States cannot achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it deals directly with the Arab- Israeli conflict and regional instability.” As well as Iraq, Afganistan needs, “political, economic, and military support.” If troops are removed from Iraq, Afganistan can gain the military help and the United States can slowly put the Middle East in the right position. I had almost no knowledge on the disaters of Afganistan, and now agree with the fact that, “the United States should reduce its politicl, military, or economic support for the Iraqi government.” The news in America is so focused on Iraq right now only becuase we have troops there, but Afganistan needs the same attention.

I found an article directly relating to the racism in Iraq called “Hypocrisy and Racism of Iraq War: Suicide Bombing Minus the Suicide” by Ray Hanania. At the website:

“On the day the were reporting yet another “assassination” attempt against Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein, the one-sided American news media was soft-balling how three non-embedded journalists had been killed, too…A reporter for Al-Jazeera, the news agency criticized by Americans for alleged “bias,” and two others including one journalist from Reuters, were killed in two separate incidents by what appeared to be American fire…Al-Jazeera accused the United States of intentionally targeting their offices and killing their reporter because the American military doesn’t want the American people to see the extent of their own crimes in killing Iraqi civilians. Al-Jazeera is one of the few network news stations broadcasting images of apparent and alleged American war crimes.”

I found this article hard to read. I was shocked that the American people would go as far as to kill eachother to prevent the news from being valid and brutally honest. We are fighting a war against Iraq and we are beginning to fight a war amongst our selves. It’s pathetic. I am so against how the news doesn’t show the actual footage of what is happeneing in Iraq. Killing the Iraqi civillians is one terrible thing, but why hide the truth just so that the American new stations dont get shut down by angry pro- war American public. What about all of the anti- war supporters in America? I don’t care if my news is “too” critical of the war effort, rather I want to see the progress of my country. This article indicated that the Americans are biased against reporters from the same race. This is an unusual form of racism, but it still has the same effect as one being biased against some one of a different color skin. I have not made the connection with this case and Huckleberry Finn, but I do have one idea. The people in Huck Finn treat Jim as a slave, and treat him the way they do because they are embarrassed of what he would imput into the society as a free man. The Americans in this article are killing other Americans, as they are afraid of the capabilities of the American journalists in Iraq being alive.

When Mr. Wasserman first introduced to the class that we were to studying satire along with the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I was surprised. I had no idea that such humor went hand in hand with this classic book by Mark Twain. Knowing this makes me much more excited to begin reading the book, as I am a great fan of satire. I watch the Colbert Report and The Daily Show which take current events and stretches them out. These shows also point out the rediculous things in society and exaggarate them. For example, John Stewart would say that the violence in Iraq was under control, and then he would show these horrific pictures of soldiers struggling. This shows the mess that America is in, but makes a joke out of it at the same time. Satire is so popular becuase it makes people more relaxed and understanding of the not so calm events that maybe going on in America. I think that it makes people happy to be laughing about the situation in America. Scary Movie is deffinitely not satire becuase it has nothing to do with the social problems of the US, rather it pokes fun of different movies and people. On the other hand, Borat, is a hilarious character makes fun of “his” cultures. In Borat, Borat finds himself afraid of Jewish people and wanting to find a gun that would best kill the Jews. Of course he has almost gone to far with that, but he also makes fun of the social depression in his country.