Huck demonstrates his loyalty when he befriends Jim. This becomes evident when he realizes that he cannot tell the others of Jim's whereabouts. Huck struggles over telling the truth of telling a lie. He cannot reach an acceptable answer at the time and thus determines to do "whichever come handiest at the time" (Twain 307). Huck does eventually lies for his friend later in the novel - an indication that he is more human than the adults that attempted to raise him. He rationalizes lying by saying:
Then I thought a minute and says to myself, hold on, --s'pose you'd done a right and give Jim up; would you feel better than what you do now? No, says I, I'd feel bad -- I'd feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, what's the use of you learning to do right, when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages just the same?" (307).
In addition, he decides that it would be better to go to hell than to tell on his friend. For a young boy raised on racism in a culture drenched in deep religious guilt, he comes to see the light rather quickly.
However, the poignancy of the relationship is revealed through Jim's interaction with Huck.
He tells the young boy that he is the "bes' fren'" (305) he has ever known and the only friend he has after he runs away. Like Tom, Jim is the eldest in each relationship and is therefore more aware of what is going on around him. He knows the repercussions of befriending a slave and this makes him appreciate Huck even more. Jim needs Huck's friendship but he has been conditioned by society to put those types of things...
Whether a character is imprisoned by his own inability to shake loose from discomfort, or enslaved through none of his own doing, the universal human sentiment is to set the character free. Meanwhile I disagree with Hochman when she writes that the book's "direct attack on the peculiar institution subverted its claim to timelessness" and adds that because it "critiqued a social evil in a particular historical period" it failed
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