Professor

WRITING TASK – DUKE & KING The Duke and King represent in a very raw, extreme form, a general psychological tendency of the respectable citizens Huck has encountered on his journey thus far. Twain satirizes the egocentricity and self-righteous indignation of American society. He shows that even what may first appear to be a gesture of generosity by members of this society, is often driven by selfish motives. The more respected characters that Huck has met before …

…feigning religious piety or attempting to demonstrate a moral superiority that they do not possess, nor do they (like the ferry-boat captain) try to gain favour with the more respected members of society, in an attempt to raise their position on the social scale. It is because they lack these inhibitions that the Duke and the King represent in an “undiluted” and unhindered form the self-interested motivations of the more respectable characters that Huck encounters.