Satire Represented by Shrek and Huckleberry Finn

          When the Dreamworks movie Shrek was released in 2001, many connections were made exemplifying the topic of satire. Satire is the use of ridicule, humor, irony and exaggeration and is used to criticize and evaluate different issues in life. The film Shrek is a fairytale that is not like any other. For example, in our society today princesses are known to fall in love with a prince charming or knight in shining armor. However, the heroic figure in this movie ends up being Shrek, who is the complete opposite of a prince; he is an ogre. Ogres are usually not really the most charming or "good guys" necessarily in most stories that we usually hear. In most cases, the prince is handsome, charming, good looking, and very strong. Shrek is merely the exact opposite of how a prince is portrayed in our society today. This also shows, however, that one does not have to have these characteristics to fall in love. Princess Fiona fell in love with Shrek while he was and ogre still and she was remaining as a human at the time. This situation is a great example of satire in media that is represented in a form of irony, or other words, incongruity.
          Out of most of the satirical techniques, parody is used the most frequently throughout the film. Parody is used to imitate and ridicule an original version of something though humor and to make the audience laugh and feel more comfortable with the topic. In Shrek, a scene representing a parody of West Side Story is when Shrek and Princess Fiona are almost captured by Robinhood and his men. During the battle between the two sides, everyone is singing and dancing while fighting and this scene is very similar and can be compared to one that is displayed in West Side Story. A second satirical technique used in the film Shrek is exaggeration which is the enlarging of a situation beyond normal boundaries to show fault and to show situations which have become ridiculous. One example of this in this film is the scene also where Princess Fiona is battling with Robinhood and his merry men. Fiona goes crazy and takes down every one of the men that she is fighting against and makes it look easy and like it was not a big deal. This scene shows how exaggerated the fight really was and made Fiona, still a princess in human form, look much bigger and stronger than she would be in real life if she was fighting off multiple men.
          The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a great example that uses satire to show the many problems of civilizations and societies. Twain mocks how society was with the topic of racism by making a story about a boy, Huck, and his families slave, Jim, and the friendship they acquire throughout their journeys and adventures during the novel. Huck and Jim experience many things together during the story line including running away, meeting frauds, feeling new emotions together, and realizing the meaning behind their friendship. The language Twain chose to use in this book is interesting, yet informational because it is comical and challenging for the reader, but how people have talked in the time that the story was written.   One scene exemplifying parody in this book is the scene when the feud occurs between the Shepardsons and Grangerfords. These two families have a history of never getting along, but don't seem to even know a real reason for their disputes. Exaggeration can also be shown as a satirical technique in this scene because two of the children, one from each family, run off and get married and begin another feud with the families. The problems between these two is greatly exaggerated and could have been handled in much better matters. Parody and exaggeration are just two of the many forms of satire in literature and media, well shown by examples from both the film Shrek and the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.