Let us not be blind to the way in which Mark Twain is
obviously poking fun at the South and their tendency to hold grudges for years, even
when the initial reason for the feud is long forgotten. Huck's conversation with Buck in
Chapter 18 is a hilarious satire on feuds and how ridiculous they truly are. Note how
Buck describes a feud to the ignorant Huck:
readability="13">
...a feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with
another man, and kills him; then that other man's brother kill him; then the other
brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the cousins chip in--and by and by
everbody's killed off, and there ain't no more feud. But it's kind of slow, and takes a
long time.
The rather
nonchalant way in which Buck describes such a terrible process, only concluding to say
that it is "kind of slow," indicates that Twain is satirising this aspect of Southern
society. As if to emphasise this, note how Buck says that he has no idea of how the feud
actually started. People are still killing each other and hate each other for some
reason that is now long forgotten in the past.
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