‘Blind faith’ explored through Twain’s ‘Huckleberry Finn’

Samuel Clemens, or, as he is better known by his renown pen name, Mark Twain, wrote several national favorites such as Tom Sawyer and The Celebrated Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County. His most popular work is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which is often characterized as a controversial book through its criticisms of the society that the book took place in and the use of the n-word. In his book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain criticizes religion by pointing out the naivety and hypocrisy of the religious. He does this for the purpose of pointing out the ignorance of blind faith.

In order to prove the point of Twain showing naivety of the religious in order to reveal the ignorance of blind faith, look no further than the events that took place inside the book in the one-horse town of Pokeville. In a way to get money, the con man, who at the time was pretending to be the child of King Louis the XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, goes to the town’s revival service and pretends to be a pirate, reformed by God, who is about to go on an adventure to reform others. The people all cheer and praise him for his bravery to go on this journey, so much so that they suggest that he should have the church offerings for his trip.

In the end, the con man ends up with $87 and a jug of alcohol. The people did not just believe the con man, but also gave him love and praise that was undeserving of him. This contributes to Twain’s purpose since it has people just going along with the con man’s plan without question since he claimed to be “reformed” by God. (Evidence was found on pages 131 and 132, Chapter 20).

In order to prove the point of Twain showing the hypocrisy of the religious to help reveal ignorance of blind faith, the one most obvious example is when the Grangerfords and Shepardsons went to church.

For some background info, there is a feud going on between the two families (Grangerfords and Shepardsons) that seems to mirror that of the violent feud of Montagues and Capulets of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The two families attend the same church, and on the day when “George Jaxon” (Huck in disguise) had been with the Grangerfords, at the church the preacher had been giving a sermon on brotherly love.

The two families gave a positive response and discussion over the topic of brotherly love, despite the fact that the two families do not practice it, since they brought guns into the church to show that they would fight the other back if deemed necessary. This shows the religious hypocrisy through the two, violently feuding families talking about brotherly love as though they practice it themselves, which they don’t. (Evidence was found on page 112, Chapter 18).

Twain provides the reasons of pointing out the ignorance of blind faith through showing the naivety and sometimes hypocrisy of religious people. The naivety was shown by people who just because someone claims to be reformed by God they decided to praise and pay them. The hypocrisy was shown by two families who claim to always show brotherly love, being some of the most violent characters in the story.

Although I did not enjoy some of the book, it had developed quite the interesting criticism, by questioning the truth of blind faith while also revealing some downsides of practicing it.