Circus/Mob scene

Something I’d like to touch on more, that we didn’t in class is Twain’s use of contrast. The one example we started to talk about was the mob/circus scene. My initial response to reading this was that he’s satirizing romanticism. Things can go from bad to good and we all live happily ever after. Huck is talking about the lynching when he says, “I could’a’ stayed if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to. I went to the circus and loafed around the back side…” (Twain 146). The fact that Huck went from watching a man almost get killed to a carnival was intentional, but why? Twain didn’t like the romantic age or people. This whole transition scene was meant to mock both of those things. First, Twain made the small towns people look gullible after hearing a short speech by Sherburn, they all ran and ‘followed the crowd”. “The crowd washed back sudden, and then broke all apart, and went tearing off every which way” (Twain 146). This part ended with no one getting and lynched and everyone lives on, which is a Romanized ending and following into a circus in the same town.
Another example of how Twain uses contrast is between Huck and Tom which we did talk about in class. The idea of America vs. Europe is the same as Huck vs. Tom. Another way I looked at it was that the carnival represented America and the lynching scene, Europe. Twain wanted to make the transition immediate so we could get just how different these two are. Can we talk about this more in class, I want to explore the idea more and build off others imput.