A multitude of events and characters float down the river of moral maturation with Huckleberry Finn, diverting his path from that of nihilistic ambivalence and implicit biases, to genuine tolerance and recognition of the humanity within Jim. The novel begins with Huck as passive observer of and participant in the racism enveloping his surroundings, just beginning to take the first steps toward compassion. He doesn’t react in any negative manner to his abusive father’s rantings about “this country where they’d let that nigger vote” (28), or Tom Sawyer’s treatment of Jim as a toy to be manipulated, showing the normality of prejudice in his context. It’s really not until he meets Jim on Jackson’s Island that the assumption of inherent black inferiority