Although there is debate on whether ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ is able to properly critique all parts of Twain’s society, it successfully analyzes the immoral practices of his society through his descriptions of mob mentality.
The most blatant way Twain critiques mob mentality is through the use of the character of Colonel Sherburn and the town’s attempt to lynch him. As Huck is traveling around with the King and the Duke, they stop in a small town to put on a play. While in this town, Huck witnesses the local drunk, Boggs, get shot by Colonel Sherburn for taunting him in front of the townsfolk. At first, the townspeople agree with Sherburn’s decision, even going so far as to mimic the shooting so other people can ‘see’ what happened. However, one person mentions that Sherburn should be lynched for his crime, and a mob forms. They go to Sherburn’s house and he gives a long speech about mob mentality, saying, “The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's what an army is – a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers” (Twain, 146). Here, Twain uses the character of Sherburn to make a commentary on mob mentality as Sherburn directly points out the flaw with a mob: they are prone to outrageous and violent acts because of the courage of having anonymity when in a group. He cites how people can be influenced by their peers to adopt certain behaviors or do certain actions when emotionally charged, and how this is not real courage but, in fact, a pitiful facade. During his speech, Sherburn not only makes a commentary on the general mentality of a mob but also directly addresses his own mob’s influences. He says, “But if only HALF a man – like Buck Harkness, there – shouts 'Lynch him! lynch him!' you're afraid to back down – afraid you'll be found out to be what you are – COWARDS – and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that half-a-man's coat-tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big things you're going to do” (Twain, 146). Sherburn calls out the mob in their attempt to lynch him by commenting on the reason why they all so quickly changed their opinions about the shooting and became so willing to commit such a violent act. The reader can infer here that Twain is pointing out the ability of humans to be persuaded by peers or other individuals into committing an act that they would be unwilling to do alone. Sherburn also comments on the lack of courage within a mob; Sherburn can stand up in front of a mob that only minutes before was out for his blood because no one in the crowd has the courage to defy him. He knows that, at the core, mobs only gain power from being in numbers rather than individual human courage.
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Twain also satirizes how quickly a group is willing to resort to violence to solve a problem instead of thinking it through and coming up with a rational solution. As the King and the Duke travel around scamming people, they learn about the death of a wealthy man whose two brothers will be the beneficiaries of his will. They con both the town and relatives of the deceased man to get the inheritance until the real brothers come to town and the four men confront each other. The townspeople discover that they have been deceived and turn on the King and Duke. As the crowd is trying to decide a fair punishment for the crimes, a townsperson says, “‘The whole bilin’ of ‘m’s frauds! Le’s duck ‘em! le’s drown ‘em! le’s ride ‘em on a rail!’ and everybody was whooping at once…” (Twain, 201). When deceived or made to seem weak, people tend to have emotional reactions and band together against whatever or whoever contributed to the original ‘injustice’. The townspeople quickly let their emotions overtake their rational thought and are set off by an idea to harm the King and the Duke as retribution. Twain uses the overreaction and quick change in the rationale of the crowd in a similar way to Sherburn’s speech. He criticizes the human tendency to quickly resort to violence or physical action when emotional, heavily implying that mob mentality is completely irrational as it is built on emotional response with no regard to logic or reason. Eventually, the crowd comes to the conclusion that the King and Duke should be lynched for their crimes. The town begins to form a mob. “‘We’ll do it!’ they all shouted; ‘and if we don’t find them marks we’ll lynch the whole gang!’” (Twain, 202). Here, the mob is beginning to properly form after amplifying the emotional response they initially had to the actions of the King and Duke. Through this scene, Twain implies that a mob is quick to form based on emotion, and once again, easily turns to violence as a response to the situation. He reinforces how a mob has no originality of thought; they all band together around one idea. Using the mob, Twain voices his opposition to how humans treat each other, whether it is deserved or not.
Throughout the novel, Twain satirizes the effects of mob mentality fighting, implying that it is completely foolish. As Jim and Huck are traveling across Mississippi, they are separated and Huck is taken in by a family called the Grangerfords. There, Huck meets a boy his age named Buck, who introduces Huck to a long-running feud between the Grangerfords and another wealthy family, the Shepherdsons. After being shot at by a member of the Shepherdson family, Buck says he wished he could have killed him. When Huck asks why, Buck says that even though the individual boy had never done anything to him, he is obligated to kill him because of the feud, saying that “a feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other man’s brother kills him; then the other brother, on both sides, goes for one another; then the cousins chip in – and by and by everybody’s killed off, and there ain’t no more feud…” (Twain, 107). Using the character of Buck, Twain voices his opinion on how a mob mentality is unreasonable. The fact that the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons continue a feud without understanding what they are fighting for shows how humans will attempt to preserve their perceived honor no matter the cost and that it only worsens when two conflicting sides are composed of a group as each group drives its individual members in a collective mob, exacerbating the problem through peer pressure and intense emotional cultivation. After explaining to Huck what a feud is, Buck admits that he doesn’t even know why the feud is happening, saying that he doesn’t know why the fight started or who started it. He says, “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, 108). By having Buck admit that no one knows why the feud started or who started it, Twain is satirizing the emotional momentum of a fight continuing even when nobody remembers why. Both the Shepherdsons and Grangerfords led themselves to their own demise for no other reason than to seek revenge on the other for a purpose they weren't even aware of. Twain uses this to show that this type of mob mentality fighting leads to death and is completely foolish.
Twain utilizes both individual characters and scenes to show his contempt for mob mentality, making a commentary on the individuals within the mob and the human tendency to resort to groups to make violent decisions on the basis of anonymity.
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