Mark Twain seemed to have taken some author’s liberty upon writing the chapters about the Grangerfords. This selection is humorous, however unnecessary to the novel. Twain seems to have added this part for the enjoyment of the readers, and add to the satire he already created within the novel. The Grangerford family’s humor is found where their daughter, Emmeline writes her poems about the deceased. Sadness is found where the redundant feud leads to the death of Huck’s new friends. An underlying allusion is found in the Grangerford family. Twain related this family to the play Romeo and Juliet, where in both, incessant fighting leads to unnecessary deaths. The Grangerford family has elements of humor, sadness, and an allusion to the play Romeo and Juliet.
The Humor in the Grangerford family is found through their daughter Emmeline. Through her works of poetry, she brings about that element that makes this selection of the book funnier to the reader. Her poetry about the dead is unintentionally humorous, which almost seems to make her character even funnier. Despite the upbeat, kind personalities found elsewhere in the family, Emmeline Grangerford is uncharacteristically morbid. The rest of the family seems to not blink twice at her unusual personality, but misses her dearly. Her skill at creating poems within minutes was known throughout the town. Her obsession with the dead made her a stock character in the family, and even her death was related, “ The neighbors said it was the doctor first, Emmeline second, and then the undertaker- the undertaker never got in ahead of Emmeline but once, and then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person’s name which was Whistler. She warn’t ever the same after that; she never complained, but she kinder pined away and did not live long” (Twain, 105). The humor is created in the ridiculous fact that this young girl who was passionate about her poems about the dead essentially died due to her inability to create and rhyme to the name “Whistler”. Humor is found in the Grangerford family through the morbid daughter Emmeline.
Sadness is another element that is found in the Grangerford family. The constant fighting led to unending tension between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons. Children from both families were raised to despise the other, and they didn’t even know what they were fighting about after so long. It was sad how they kept killing each other’s family members, even as young as fourteen years old. Huck’s new friend, Buck, was eventually killed by the families fighting. Huck felt sad as he was leaving, and felt almost guilty. “I cried a little when I was covering up Buck’s face, for he was mighty good to me” (Twain, 117). A sad part in this family is that they didn’t even realize how their fighting was hurting their families. They lost many family members to their feud, and eventually led to the death of most family members. The element of sadness is brought through the Grangerfords by their feud with the Shepherdsons.
Twain created and underlying allusion in the Grangerford’s family. The allusion is to the famous Shakespeare play, Romeo and Juliet. The feud between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons resembles the feud between the Capulets and the Montagues. The forbidden romance between Sophia Grangerford and Harney Shepherdson is exactly like between Romeo and Juliet. When Sophia and Harney decide to run away, it ends in a battle between the families, much like the play. Their love is a scandal between the families, and makes their hatred toward each other even stronger. “…Miss Sophia’s run off! Deed she has. She run off in de night some time- nobody don’t know jis’ when; run off to get married to dat young Harney Shepherdson you know” (Twain, 114). This quote shows how similar the Grangerford’s situation is to the families in Romeo in Juliet.
The Grangerford family has elements of humor, sadness, and allusion. The humor comes about unintentionally in their daughter Emmeline’s morbid poetry. She wrote poems about the dead and essentially died when she couldn’t find a rhyme to a person’s name. The sadness occurs due to the fighting. The fighting caused many deaths, and it seemed to be never-ending. The allusion occurs where Sophia and Harney run away to get married. This is an allusion to Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. All these elements come together to define the Grangerford family.
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