The flashes of farce and general comic exuberance which enlivened Huckleberry Finn are sustained in this later work; but the mood is altogether more restless and critical. Twain uses certain stock characters adn devices, such as the sardonic cracker-barrel philosopher, the scoundrel unmaskd, and the substitution of babies, to build up a complex, ironical and morally disturbing account of human nature under slavery.
