thread the needle. Flustered, when she asks him what his name is he incorrectly answers "Mary Williams."

Somehow it didn't seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I didn't look up—seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of cornered, and was afeared maybe I was looking it, too. I wished the woman would say something more; the longer she set still the uneasier I was.

RAMPANTRATS &YARNS.  Then the woman tells about how things there are so bad that the rats are in charge. Sure enough, one sticks his head out "every little while." She provided Huck with a twisted piece of lead with which to hit them; meanwhile, she uses Huck's upraised arms to begin her yarning. Twain has a bit of fun with the word play about rats (live ones and human ones) and yarn (another word for tall tales).

WOMANLYADVICEFORARUNAWAY'PRENTICE.  The woman realizes that Huck is no girl, but she also assumes that Huck is a runaway apprentice, mistreated by his master. The flustered Huck decides to play along with her imagined story, since he doesn't have a better one to tell.  

Satire pokes fun at societal or human weaknesses.

Chapter 12 of Huckleberry Finn satirizes the social tendency to use euphemisms for illegal or immoral acts. Huck and Jim, for instance, call the stealing they do to get food "borrowing," implying they have an intention of returning what they have taken. Of course, you can't return food you have already eaten, and it is unlikely the two will come by the same way again to return the food they stole. Huck learns to use the word "borrowing" for theft from his father, who adopted it because "borrowing" sounded more socially acceptable and reasonable than "stealing." Nevertheless, no matter what Huck and Jim say they are doing, the two are stealing.

A more egregious example is when Packard makes a moral distinction between killing someone passively by leaving him tied up on a sinking boat to die and actively murdering him by shooting him. He says to Bill,

See? He’ll be drownded, and won’t have nobody to blame for it but his own self. I reckon that’s a considerble sight better ’n killin’ of him. I’m unfavorable to killin’ a man as long as you can git aroun’ it; it ain’t good sense, it ain’t good morals. Ain’t I right?

Of course, what Packard is saying is nonsense: whether they shoot their victim or leave him to drown, they will have murdered him. Like Huck, Packard is twisting words to make an act look less dishonorable.

As Huck and Jim floated down the river, one of Huck's nightly errands was a visit to a village along the river to find some food for the journey. Huck had some money and could purchase food with that change. He also found food in other ways.

Huck's Pap had told Huck

take a chicken when you get a chance, because if you don't want him yourself you can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't ever forgot. I never see pap when he didn't want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway.

Twain is using satire to comment on how easily people can make excuses for the things they do, such as stealing a chicken for their own use.

Huck also took produce from farm fields they passed. He and Jim remembered being told by Pap that it was allowable "to borrow things, if you was meaning to pay them back, sometime" but they also remembered the Widow Douglas calling such an action outright stealing. After discussion, they decided

to pick out two or three things...and say we wouldn't borrow them any more...So we talked it over all one night...and concluded to drop crabapples and p'simmons...I was glad the way it come out, too, because crabapples ain't ever good, and the p'simmons wouldn't be ripe for two or three months yet.

The satire in this passage refers to the serious debate about what items they should stop stealing, with the decision being that they would stop stealing two foods that they wouldn't have taken anyway. But having decided to not "borrow" those things, they then felt "comfortable" taking other, more desirable foods.

While Huck and Jim commence their adventurous journey on the Mississippi River, the raft becomes a makeshift home as Jim forms a wigwam for them to get out of the elements, placing a fire box outside.  In the night, Huck slips ashore to buy some meal and bacon; sometimes he "lifts" a chicken, rationalizing that Pa always said to take one

when you get a chance because if you don't want him yourself you can easy find somebody who does, and a good deed ain't ever forgot.

In the morning, Huck sneaks into corn fields and "borrows" a watermelon, a mushmelon, a pumpkin, or some new corn, reasoning again that Pap has said it is no harm to borrow if you intend to pay someone back.  However, since the widow has said that such acts are stealing, Jim feels that both Pap and the widow have points, so the best thing to do is just to decide not to borrow the same things all the time.  So, they have eliminated taking persimmons and crabapples.  Huck narrates,

We warn't feeling just right, before that, but it was all comfortable now.  I was glad the way it come out ,too, because crabapples ain't ever good, and the p'simmons wouldn't be ripe to two or three months yet.

In this passage of Chapter XII, Mark Twain satirizes the way in which people rationalize and justify their wrongdoings.

In Chapter XIII, when Jim and Huck encounter a wrecked steamboat, they find a skiff full of plunder and transfer this to the raft, but think nothing of taking this because the "gang of murderers" have really stolen it.  However, Huck does feel some obligation to find someone to rescue the men on the wrecked boat.  So, he fabricates a story that his family is stranded on the Walter Scott in order to convince the watchman to rescue the thieves.  Pip feels "ruther comfortable" about what he has done because he believes that the widow would be proud of him for helping the thieves

because rapscallions and dead beats is the kind the widow and good people takes the most interest in.

Here Twain satirizes the efforts of people to provide charity to people who are strangers and of little character when they often neglect those in their own family or neighborhoods.

Satire is defined as the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice or folly.

Feuding doesn't necessarily fit into that definition of satire, but there is plenty of feuding in chapter 30 as the king and the duke attempt to blame each other for the fiasco that resulted in their loss of all the money they had hoped to steal. They use backhanded compliments to make fun of each others' abilities and accuse the other of ruining the plan through overacting and/or gullibility of the character being played during their attempt to be the long-lost Wilks brothers.

Both use irony in trying to blame the other for the creation of the story that the "niggers" had stolen the money.

"Mf! And we reckoned the niggers stole it!" That made me squirm! Yes," says the duke, kinder slow, and deliberate, and sarcastic, "We did." After about a half a minute, the king drawls out: "Leastways - I did." The duke says, the same way: "On the contrary - I did."

By the end of the chapter, however, their arguing has been washed away in the warmth of their liquor and they are again best friends while they slept and dreamt of their next scheme.

Mark Twain is of course a master of satire and so it is fitting that perhaps his greatest novel should be used to satirise a number of things. However, the chapters you have identified chart what is known as "the evasion", or the period when Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer get back together and hatch an incredibly elaborate plot to free Jim. All evidence of the thoughtful, maturing and developing Huck is gone in these chapters, some critics argue.

However, I think it is clear that Twain is satirising romanticism through the character of Tom Sawyer. It is clear in these Chapters that Tom Sawyer envisions himself as a romantic, almost mythic hero. For Tom, hatching an elaborate scheme is far more important than being honest with his friend and telling him about Jim's release. Consider what Tom says about Huck's practical and straightforward plan in Chapter 34:

"Work? Why, cert'nly it would work, like rats a-fighting. But it's too blame' simple; there ain't nothing to it. What's the good of a plan that ain't no more trouble than that? It's as mild as goose-milk. Why, Huck, it wouldn't make no more talk than breaking into a soap factory."

It is this desire to have an incredibly exciting and romantic plan, fraught with danger and worry, that drives Tom Sawyer to concoct his ridiculous escape plan, that even Jim has to play a part in to help them out.

This is one of the central aspects that Twain is satirising in these last few chapters - the romantic notions of Tom Sawyer clearly show the absurd lengths to which he is prepared to go to have a "proper" adventure and achieve a "real" feat.

Satire is the use of irony and humor to criticize some aspect of society. Twain uses satire often throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to criticize, for example, the South’s treatment of slaves, blind acceptance of religion, and hypocrisy. In chapters 35 and 36, Tom and Huck are trying to devise a plan to to free Jim, the slave who is chained up in a hut at the Phelpses. Huck points out that saving Jim should be easy (Jim is chained to a bed that isn’t bolted to the ground), but Tom, always wanting to do things like they do in the adventure books, insists that they make it more difficult. He eventually suggests that they “saw Jim’s leg off” (239). When Huck protests, Tom gives in and says it would be useless anyway, because

Jim’s a n*****, and wouldn’t understand the reasons for it, and how it’s custom in Europe (239).

Clearly, Tom’s idea is ridiculous, and Huck, though uneducated, is able to see the impracticality of Tom’s plan. Huck doesn’t understand why Tom wants to make things so difficult when they could easily lift the bed up, free Jim, and take him away on the raft. Here, Twain seems to be criticizing both the kind of literature Tom gets his ideas from, but also the idea that many people in the South (represented by Tom) saw their slaves as property, things to use for their own benefit. Tom doesn’t really care for Jim’s well-being; he just wants to use the circumstances as material for another one of his wild adventures. Huck, on the other hand, has formed a relationship with Jim and truly wants to do what he can to get Jim free. He goes along with Tom’s plans, which get more ridiculous as the chapter goes on, because Tom acts like an authority on the matter, but he questions everything along the way. When the two boys eventually realize their outlandish plans are impractical, they decide it’s acceptable to just pretend they’ve done everything according to how it’s done in the adventure books. Huck ironically reflects that Tom is “full of principal” (246) because he tries so hard to do things the “right” way, when really Huck is the one who is “full of principal,” focused only on getting JIm free, not on the adventure that doing so involves.

We are each and all responsible for our own behavior, no matter what society says is "moral" or "right". This seems to be the message that underlays the novel and the point of much of the novel's satire. Huck is disturbed by the difference between society's mores and his own sense of loyalty, integrity, and honor. 

I agree with others that Twain is really satirising so many aspects of Southern American society. The Grangerford incident really satirised the kind of feuds that existed between Southern families - note how both the Grangerfords and the Shephertons bring guns to the service and listen to the sermon, which is on brotherly love, and then go back, discussing the sermon, but obviously not letting it penetrate their hearts at all!

There are many targets of Twain's satire in this work.  The hypocrisy of human nature is just part of it...he also makes fun of the organization of religion, of con artists and their gullible victims, of pride and vanity, and the lopsidedness of slavery (which is what makes this coming-of-age book so amazing...it illustrates the true friendship of a little white boy with an adult black man and Huck's trouble with what he feels vs. what society tells him is right).

One of the classic examples of satire is Twain's description of Emmaline Grangerford and her obsession with writing weepy confessional poetry. Huck is utterly flummoxed by Emmaline and her behavior, which is described in such a way as to satirize those who cling to the Romantic tradition of literature, but he figures that she must be extremely talented to do the things she does.

In addition to the previous posts, I think Twain is also satirizing the Romantic/Transcendental philosophies saying the man can perfect himself. He focuses a lot on man's innate evil nature, such as is displayed in "The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg" as well as other later works. Twain seems to mock the idea of moral perfect as well as the religious sentimentalism that came with Transcendentalism (Gargerford's poetry in Huck Finn is one example). He shows it as being ridiculous and nonsensical, adding a harsher, more biting form of satire as he got older.

Echoing the previous post's sentiment, I would suggest that Twain is quite skilled at being able to express what is in the hopes of what can be.  I think this is fairly compelling and a strong idea given the nature and scope of his work.  He seeks to present what is accepted as commonplace and tears the facade off it to expose a reality that strives and demands to be changed into what can be.

Society's hypocrisy is the target of Twain's criticism.  From promoting slavery as morally right to killing children in the name of a feud (which supposedly upholds family pride), Twain's satire leaves few aspects of American society unsinged.  His message through Huck Finn is that humans have consciences which should guide them morally, but society corrupts the conscience and uses it for approbation of all that it once abhorred.

Twain's satire in Huck follows the four standard elements of classical satirical writing: hyperbole, reversal, parody, and incongruity.

In Mark Twain's classic, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, satire abounds.  As he humorously criticizes religion, Twain often focuses on the hypocrisy of the "good Christians."  In one instance, Huck relates how the Widow Douglas coerces him into going to church, she teaches him Bible verses, and chastises him severely for smoking even though, as Huck relates,

...she took snuff, too; of course, that was all right because she done it herself.

In another instance, when Huck stays with the Grangerfords, the men attend church, but bring their guns, symbolic, of course, of violence and murder.  

Further in the novel, the Dauphin easily deceives the religious crowd of mourners in Chapter XX.  After the preacher cries out,

Oh, come to the mourners' bench! come, black with sin! (amen!) come, sick and sore! (amen!)...

With hilarious irony, the king responds to the call and asks the preacer if he can be allowed to speak.  Then, he fabricates a story of how he has been a pirate, but now he is a changed man thanks to a preacher in a tent in Pokeville, "the truest friend a pirate ever had!" 

When the king feigns tears, "so did everybody." The so easily emotionally swayed crowd cries. Then someone "sings out,'Take up a collection!'"  And, another encourages with "Let him pass the hat around!"  Thus, in this instance, Twain satires the unthinking and religious fools that are so easily swayed and duped by one of the greatest hypocrites of the novel.