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Similes
Chapter 18
Explanation and Analysis—Brotherly Love:
When Huck is spending time with the Grangerfords and learning about their violent, decades-long feud with the Shepherdsons, he joins them at church. His description of this experience contains situational irony:
Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody a-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching—all about brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness.
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Chapter 23
Explanation and Analysis—Jim's Humanity:
After several chapters in which Huck is focused on describing the duke and the king's antics, his attention turns to Jim, whom he witnesses mourning over being separated from his family. Huck's observations contain situational irony:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He was thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was low and homesick; because he hadn’t ever been away from home before in his life; and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their’n. It don’t seem natural, but I reckon it’s so.
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Chapter 33
Explanation and Analysis—Huck Judging Tom:
In a strange moment near the end of Huckleberry Finn, Huck reveals to his friend Tom Sawyer that he has been helping Jim escape from slavery and, rather than judge or chastise Huck for it, Tom decides to help him. Instead of appreciating this offer, Huck judges Tom negatively for it, and his narration his internal reaction is an example of situational irony:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I’m bound to say Tom Sawyer fell, considerable, in my estimation. Only I couldn’t believe it. Tom Sawyer a nigger stealer!
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