This project begins by establishing a working theory on the nature and function of satire and irony by discussing the foundational insights of John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, and Søren Kierkegaard in the context of several contemporary theorists. Focusing on Mark Twain, chapter two analyzes Twain's satiric development by elucidating Twain's own explanations for several of his newspaper squibs from the 1860s. Chapters three and four analyze the functions of verbal irony, metaphor, and wordplay in Twain's construction of modal satire. These chapters examine frequently anthologized works—"Buck Fanshaw's Funeral," "A Cat-Tale," Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg"—exploring Twain's reconceptualized role for realistic, satiric literature that invites the reader to participate in societal reformation through artistic contemplation, which rejects the romanticized role for literature that merely reinforces morals by prompting emulation. In chapter five, R. Laurence Moore's and Charles Knight's research informs the thesis for Mark Twain's trickster position as an insider to the religious community—whom he satirizes with a shared knowledge, language, and values to reaffirm those values and how they are practiced—or alternatively as an outsider who uses that same knowledge and language to challenge hypocrisy and reinterpret current values. This paradoxical tension in Twain's satires makes plausible that, as revealed through his published writings, Mark Twain hoped for a heaven that he struggled to believe in, which kindled in him a lover's quarrel with God. Thus, the final chapter applies the insider-outsider and lover's-quarrel paradigms to Huckleberry Finn, "Letters from the Earth," and Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven.