Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Huck Finn

In Mark Twain's Huckeberry Finn, the title character and escaped slave Jim bond together in their mutual quest for freedom. Neither knows where they are headed, but they do know where they have been and what they are running from. Both have endured a different type of slavery. Jim escapes from the actual legally sanctioned and racialized form of slavery; whereas Huck Finn is running from an abusive father who literally locks him up. Therefore, Huck Finn and his friend Jim are mirrors for each other as well as partners. It matters not that their backgrounds are different, and in spite of the overarching theme of race, the two friends bond psychologically in a mutually respectful and mutually protective relationship.

Huckleberry Finn and Jim go out of their ways to help one another while they are on the island, and after. There is no formal bond of loyalty between them; their connection is unspoken and assumed. However, the friendship between Huck Finn and Jim does not develop organically as the friendship between the two white boys Huck and Tom Sawyer develops. On the contrary, Huck is well aware of the social norms that constrain the evolution of his friendship with Jim. At the beginning of the novel, Jim is just a "nig" and not in any way differentiated as a character. Huck participates willingly in the humiliation and bullying of Jim, who is an easy target because of his low social status and inability to fight back. It is only after Huck and Jim share a common moment of crisis and alienation that they create their own universe, and their own little family unit.

Within the family unit that Huck Finn and Jim create together, Jim serves in the parenting role. Jim is older than Huck, evident in his longing for the family that was torn apart due to slavery and also for his relatively mature, sober outlook on life. Jim's demeanor is contrasted with that of Huck, and especially Tom Sawyer. Unlike the boys, Jim seems level headed. His sobering attitude is revealed most of all at the end of the story, when Jim sacrifices his own freedom in order to do what he believes is morally right -- that is, to help Tom. Why Jim would help a boy who wanted to throw rocks at him is unclear; it makes Jim seem like a weak man and not like someone who was willing to fight for his freedom. Jim's surrender represents the futility of his trying to escape from slavery in the first place.

However, Huckleberry Finn is not about Jim. What goes on in Jim's head is not available to the reader, who only learns from Huck's perspective what it might be like to be an escaped slave. Huck also does not see Jim as a father figure, even if Jim acts that way towards Huck. For Huck, Jim is an equal and a friend, or at least a partner in his plans to escape. As Jehlen (1995) puts it, "the two principal characters, Huck and Jim, represent the two sides of the dilemma: Huck strikes out for an absolute freedom, while Jim requires, in order to gain his own freedom, that Huck qualify his freedom by entering into the pursuit of Jim's," (p. 2).

The friendship that develops between Huck and Jim is one that is ironically equal in spite of their age difference. Their equality is related directly to the racist undertones of Twain's novel. Jim is an adult, but because he is black, he is the intellectual equivalent of a white child. Had Twain written Jim as a child slave, the relationship and friendship would have been an egalitarian one. As Robinson (1988) states, Jim becomes a "two-dimensional parody, a racial stereotype with roots in the minstrel tradition…one symptom among many others of Mark Twain's failure of moral vision and artistic integrity," (p. 361).

Throughout much of the novel, Jim has a degree of power especially as he appears wiser than Huck. For example, Jim encounters the dead body and will not show it to Huck. When it is later revealed that the dead man was Pap, the reader understands that Jim has a strong level of emotional intelligence and wisdom that his young friend might not have. Yet Huck remains the hero of his own story, and he does demonstrate wisdom and personal integrity beyond his years. Huck, for example, makes a point to hide Jim knowing full well what would happen if he were caught. The decision to hide a runaway slave is a mature one, as Huck opts for moral correctness over the conformity to social norms. Twain can be forgiven for the racist undertones of the novel because Jim's escaping to slavery is presented on an equal moral framework to Huck's escaping from the abusive father. Moreover, Jim's return to captivity could be re-read as social commentary that suggests that blacks in America did not achieve social parity even after the demise of the institution of slavery. Huckleberry Finn enjoys his white privilege and will never have to worry about race; whereas race is the element in Jim's life that prevents him from achieving full independence and self-determination. Huck has been freed from the tyranny of his father, but Jim can never fully extricate himself from a racist society.

The friendship between Huckleberry Finn and Jim goes through an undulating terrain, starting with the stereotypical behavior of a white child towards what he perceives of as a lower being. When Huck and Jim start on their journey together, the core of their friendship develops, and race becomes almost a non-issue. Huck is not mature, aware, or curious enough to ask probing questions of Jim; but Huck also knows that he does not need to ask how brutal slavery actually is. Huck seems to instinctually know that slavery has a stranglehold on American society, which is why he lies about hiding Jim.