Huck Finn Post 3

After Huck and Jim get split up from the raft, Huck stumbles across the Grangerfords. After establishing that he is not a Shepherdson, the Grangerfords are quick to welcome Huck into their home. Unlike anything Huck has seen before, the Grangerfords large estate with over one hundred slaves and lavish lifestyle bewilders him. However there is humor in Huck’s portrayal of the Grangerfords stylish house for it can be seen as somewhat tacky and comical. Twain adds satirical elements to the Grangerfords by exaggerating their deep family rift with the Shepherdson’s and their deceased daughters Victorian Age traits. Through the Grangerfords Twain pokes fun at generational family feuds and the mourning during the Victorian Age. The Grangerords deceased daughter, Emmeline, mocks the dark and melancholy mood of the Victorian Age with her obsession for the dead. Twain also mocks the idea of family honor when describing the Grangerford-Shepherdson feud. Huck finds out that the families don’t know the reason that started the fighting and later describes a church service saying, “The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The Shepherdson’s done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching—all about brotherly love…” (Twain 111). This shows the absurdity of maintaining family honor. The two families don’t know why they are fighting, yet they still bring guns to church sermons preaching of brotherly love. In a comical way Twain is making fun of maintaining family honor and how ridiculous it can become.

Although there are comical aspects to the Grangerfords there are also some more serious and saddening realties. Although Twain mocks the Victorian Age through Emmeline he expresses a feeling of loss with her death. Although she is dead the family makes an effort to maintain her room, and keeps all of her poems and art to remember her by. Twain’s mockery of the Grangerford-Shepherdson also takes a more serious spin when Buck, Huck’s newfound friend dies in a gunfight. As he cover’s his friends face Huck says, “I cried a little when I was covering up Buck’s face, for he was mighty good to me” (Twain 117). Although the family feud was first seen as comical the result was tragic for Huck and the Grangerfords. Buck, his father and two brothers were killed in a gunfight with the Shepherdson’s to maintain a sense of family honor. This tragic ending represented the great loss and sadness for the Shepherdson’s.

The Grangerfords are an allusion to Shakespeare’s famous play “Romeo and Juliet.” The Grangerford-Shepherdson feud is very similar to that in Romeo and Juliet between the Capulets and Montagues. Both are tragic in their ending and irrational on their reasoning. In both stories each family is trying to uphold a sense of family honor which results in grim and devastating results. Similar to the Capulet-Montague relationship in Romeo and Juliet the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons are both powerful families that are at odds from quarrels long ago. When Huck asks what the fighting is about Buck replies, “Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the other old people; but they don’t know now what the row was about in the first place” (Twain 110). This shows the stupidity of the families for they did not even know what they were fighting about. Twain was trying to show the irrationality of family feuds through the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons just as Shakespeare was through the Capulets and Montagues.