Huck Finn And Jim's Relationship Analysis

In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huckleberry Finn and a runaway slave Jim are two people that cross paths and become friends. Huck is a boy escaping society and society's morals. Jim is also escaping from society's laws to gain his freedom. Jim and Huck develop a close relationship during their journey on the raft and the relationship could be viewed as a father-son relationship. Jim is portrayed as a father figure to Huck because of Jim’s caring nature and always looking out for Huck. The relationship between Huck and Jim grows strong throughout the novel due to the journey down the Mississippi river, Huck’s evolution, and Pap’s treatment of Huck. Huck and Jim travel down the Mississippi river and make several stops along

Huck matures as he explores and experiences the world. In the beginning of Jim and Huck’s relationship, Huck is immature and a trickster by putting a dead rattlesnake near Jim which leads to Jim being bitten by a rattlesnake. The act shows Huck’s poor judgement and childish ways. Huck grows up in a society that views slavery as the norm, but slavery is against basic human rights. During the course of the story, Huck conflicts on whether to turn Jim in or not, due to the fact it is morally wrong to help a runaway slave. Huck thinks about Miss Watson and how he is betraying her by helping Jim escape. Huck encounters slave catchers and he is internally whether to tell about Jim but decides not to and says, “They went and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn’t no use for me to try to learn to do right; a body that don’t get started right when he’s little ain’t got no show -- when the pinch comes there ain’t nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat” (Twain 102). Then later in the novel Jim is sold by some con men for $40 which upsets Huck and causes him to realize he cares about Jim and says, “All right, then I’ll GO to hell” (Twain 225). Huck is defying society’s laws by deciding to help captured Jim. Huck is maturing significantly because his perception of Jim has changed. As a result Huck sees Jim as an equal and a friend. Jim also played a role in the maturing of Huck because, “Clearly Jim’s androgynous roles enables Huck to shape a viable system of ethics and expand his capacity for sympathy, tenderness, and basic goodness” (Wasserstein). As a result of Huck’s perception of Jim changing as Huck matures, the relationship between the two becomes stronger due to Huck realizing Jim is a friend and someone he cares