Huck Finn

Throughout the book it is obvious that there are characteristics that Mark Twain either detests and despises, or respects and values them. Twain quite obviously is making fun of the undesirable characteristics such as the natural curiosity of people and also the greed for money. Although there are not many values that he respects, there is one that is shown in this book, friendship.

It is natural to show curiosity towards something but Mark Twain despises this characteristic and pokes fun at it. The biggest example of this trait is shown when the King and Duke are pulling a con on people with the "Royal Nonesuch." The sign used to get people to come to the show was the first innocent sign of natural curiosity, by saying that women and children would not be admitted. The whole performance was to have King streak across the stage colored with the bright colors of the rainbow. People only laughed at first but then suddenly realized that they had been scammed out of their money. Since they did not want to look like fools they told people that the show was great and to go and see it. They pulled it off three times total before people caught on and were going to start to rebel against the King and Duke's show. The audience was so intrigued by their flier that they showed up anyways. That shows people's natural curiosity. Mark Twain satirizes this incident and makes fun of how curious people really are. The people's curiosity ultimately led them to losing their money and their embarrassment made them decide not tell other citizens about how their curiosity caused them to lose their 50 cent admission price. That is the reason behind why Twain despises curiosity.

A second and much worse characteristic that Twain hates is peoples general greediness. Mark Twain starts mentioning greediness very early in the book when he talks about Huck's father, Pap. When Huck found out that Pap was alive, the first thing he went to do was give Judge Thatcher his $6000, because he knew his father would want it all. The greediness of Pap has caused his own son to hide his money from him so he will not take it, showing the lack of respect in their relationship. Even when Pap runs into Huck immediately he asks him is how much money he had on him, and Huck had to hand it over. No one, not even another selfish person, likes a man that only cares about only himself and money. The King and Duke were the other characters in this novel used to ridicule people's greediness. From the initial moment that Huck and Jim met the King and the Duke they both started to formulate plans to cheat people out of money. The first successful plan was when the King went to shore, after floating on the raft. He told people that he was a former pirate and was turning to the light side; people gave him money for the struggle in his life that he's had. The second plan was to pull off the performance of the "Royal Nonesuch," which was a plan that earned them $456 in three nights. The last big con they tried to pull off was at Peter Wilkes home, where they impersonated his two brothers Harvey