Many boys grew up playing cowboys and Indians, a fictional game where the cowboys victoriously murder Indians roaming their land. The real attitudes and conflicts between the Indians and cowboys, however, are much different than they are set out to be. The plot in "Colonel Sherburn" is similar to this childish game. Sherburn is prepared to face the mob that is bravely standing at his door ready to lynch him. Twain allows the characters to successfully play out the respective roles of cowboys and Indians, expressing ridicule towards the grown men playing this silly game. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain's selection of the tones of contemptuous mockery are used to promote awareness of how romanticism affected Southern life and peoples by poking fun at a malicious colonel and a pathetic mob.

Twain ironically picks Colonel Sherburn, a murderous villain, as the romantic character to illustrate...