Discuss Ideas of Disguise and Trickery in Huckleberry Finn

Throughout the course of Huckleberry Finn there are numerous accounts of characters in the book disguising themselves or tricking other people. However the ways in which they do this, and the reason they choose to. I feel this is due to the major theme in the book of the stupidity and faults of the society in which Huck lives. There is cruelty, greed, murder, trickery, racism, and a general lack of morality built into the world in which Huck lives and despite this Huck manages to turn out to be a good person.

The Duke and the King are the two main characters in the book guilty of trickery and deception. They are ruthless conmen who are willing to do anything necessary to get things out of people. They manage to reduce Jim and Huck to being their servants by pretending to by royalty. Like Huck the King is very skilled and adept at deceiving people, although his tricks become increasingly more and more evil and immoral. He starts off by conning the people at a camp meeting into giving him money so that he can “put in the rest of his life trying to turn pirates into the true path”. The King’s next trick is to put on a play in a town, where he runs away after thr

Tom Sawyer, Huck’s friend, is another character in the book who we see trying to trick people. In chapter 39 when the two boys are trying to free Jim, Tom has the idea of: “stuff Jim’s clothes full of straw and lay it on his bed to represent his mother in disguise, and Jim’ll take the nigger woman’s gown off of me and wear it, and we’ll all evade together.” Tom’s form of trickery and deception is a lot more fantastical than Huck’s, all of the scams that he comes up with are most of the time too fantastic and whimsical to work.

The language of the dialogue reflects very well the ability of the King to make up lies, and to deceive people on the spot. He is very clever and knows how to manipulate people: “Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? and ain’t that a big enough majority in any town” (page 174). The Duke is an equally able actor and con artist, Twain illustrates the two sides of his personality in his dialogue. When talking of something to do with his made up make believe heritage he talks in a much more eloquent and articulate way than when he is conversing in everyday conversation: “Hamlet’s soliloquy, you know; the most celebrated thing in Shakespeare. Ah it’s sublime, sublime! Always fetches the house.”…”I’ll just walk up and down a minute, and see if I can call in back from recollection’s vaults.” This sort of language is in stark contrast to the language he uses at other points in the book: “Walk fast, now, till you get away from the houses, and then shin for the raft like the dickens was after you!” The fact that the King and the Duke have two sided personali

Some topics in this essay:
Jim Tom, King Duke, Pretending Wilks, Huckleberry Finn, Huck King, Duke King, Jim Huck, Shakespeare Ah, Sawyer Huck’s, Mark Twain, king duke, characters book, adept deceiving people, huck lives, faults society, cruel world, lies cons, society huck, duke king, faults society huck, jim huck, trickery deception,