In Huck Finn there are numerous crowd scenes: the people at the circus, the mob that goes after Sherburn, the people at the camp meeting that the Duke cons into giving money for his pirate reform project, the crowd that attends the Royal Nonesuch performance, the crowd at Wilks' funeral, the gan of men that case Tom, Huck and Jim at the end of the book... It doesn't seem as if Twain thinks positivly about mobs and crowds. Why not? Is there some underlying attitudes, or ideas that Twain holds that causes him to feel this way towards large groups of people? Is it a political ideology of somesort that he is trying to convey? Is it some qualm with society in general? In "Mark Twain" Smith claims that "several touches [of mob attitudes] that suggest Mark Twain was recalling the ddescriptions of mobs in Carlyle's French Revolution and other works of history and fiction. He considered mobs to be subhuman aggregates generating psychological pressures that destroyed individual freedom of choice...Twain makes scathing generalizations about the cowardice of mobs, especially in the South but also in other reegions, that closely parallel Sherburn's speach." What is wrong with the way people think and act in bunches in Huck Finn? I am trying to develop a paper on this subject, but I am finding a very limited amount of information. Any help that anyone could offer would be highly appreciated! Micah