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Pap’s rant is a peak into the kind of life Pap has had. It gives an inside look to the beliefs and values that were prevalent during this time. Pap ironically focuses on the faults of the government when most of his problems are because of his own faults.
Irony is a very noted theme in his rant. He speaks about a black man in the quote, ”here’s a government that calls itself a government, and yet’s got to set stock still for six months before it can take hold of a prowling, thieving, infernl, white-shirted nigger,” (page 35). This quote shows irony because before in the passage Pap was talking about how clean cut the man was but he still believes that the man is lower than him and should just be sold off. This also shows how little he really cares about people after skin color is bought into the equation. Another piece of irony about his statement was when he talks about how the man is dressed. He states that, “he had the whitest shirt you’d ever see, too, and the shiniest hat; and there ain’t a man in that town that’s got as fine clothes as what he had “(page 35). Here he is talking spitefully about how the black man has better things than the white man because he feels that all black people should be low because that is what the state of mind in his life was. He feels like the man is stealing away what should be his because he is white, so therefore he deserves more.
Another subject of irony was when he was talking about how the government wants everyone but him to raise his son. He states in the quote, “here’s the law a-standing ready to take a man’s son away from him-a man’s own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and all the expense of raising”(page 34). This is ironic because Huck believes him to be a terrible father who abandoned him. It is also a lie because he makes it very clear when he first sees Huck that he only wants him for the money that could be made from him. He also felt wronged because he...