Huck and jim
Research papers on Huck and Jim illustrate how each character represented a different aspect of morality within the story by Twain. If you need an expert at American Literature to help you explain the relationship between Huck and Jim in Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer, have Paper Masters writers custom write you a research paper today.
By showing Huck's contacts and relationship with Jim, in Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain goes beyond the stereotypical African American of Twain's era and makes Jim a person, a human being and not merely a run-away slave. The following are key characteristics of the two characters in Twain's novel:
- It is the realization of Jim's humanity that allows Huck to rebel against his conscience
- Hucks relationship with Jim represents the list of society's accepted morals ingrained in Huck's subconscious
- It is Huck's ingrained morals that allow him not to turn in Jim to the slave catchers. Huck demonstrates the Christian principles of loving his neighbor as himself when he realizes that Jim is a man, human as much as he is, and does not deserve what society has done to him. Therefore, Huck and Jim are equals in their struggles, in society, and as friends.
Twain's Huck and Jim
According to Louis Budd, "...As the story unfolds [Huck] wrestles with his conscience and...decides he will be damned to the flames of hell rather than betray his black friend". And as Budd points out, "...when Twain made Huck and [Jim] share the same bed and grub with growing mutual trust, he resisted the tide of Jim Crowism". With Jim as a man, not just a slave, Clemens makes the reader realize the futility and idiocy of racism. By contrasting him to the free whites whom Huck meets along the river and showing him to be better in both action and deed, Clemens "...stressed the Negro's basic humanity and created a...loyal [and] generous Jim who deserved...respect...". The comparison of Jim to the King and the Duke is easy to make. Jim is constantly magnanimous to Huck; after he went to sleep, "...Jim didn't call [him] when it was [his] turn [as look-out on the raft]. He often done that".