In the beginning of Huckleberry Finn, Jim and Huck have a solid friendship, but as the novel goes on, their relationship strengthens and Jim starts to take on characteristics of a father towards Huck. Huck is a poor and uneducated white boy that comes into a corrupt society with a drunkard father, and Jim is a runaway slave that lost his family. Traveling up the Mississippi River, Huck learns that Jim is mature, loving, and passionate towards Huck. Their relationship grows which is seen during the journey of Jim’s escape from slavery. Although Huck has a father, he torments and teaches Huck the wrong way of living justly. Because of this, Huck does not see him as a father, but he does learn from him. He learns to do the opposite of what he does. "Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days. He used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been seen in these parts for a year or more" (Twain 17). Pap is a drunkard that is lazy and does not take care of his son, which causes Huck and Pap’s relationship to spread apart. Because …show more content…
An example of this is towards the end of “The River” scene. Huck is contemplating on whether to help Jim escape, or to turn him back in. Jim, knowing the state that he is in, says, “Jim won’t ever forgit you, Huck; you’s de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had; en you’s de only fren’ ole Jim’s got now” (120). Jim knows that Huck is a morally good person; therefore, this plea causes Huck to help Jim escape due to Huck’s emotions about slavery. Due to the fact that Jim knew he was in a tough situation, he finds an escape route by tricking Huck into helping him. At this time, slaves were seen as dumb and gullible, but by this trick, Jim is seen as mature and smarter than other slaves. Intelligence is key to being a father figure and this situation proves that Jim is mentally capable of filling in that
Jim gives Huck a gateway into his private life when he tells Huck this story. Huck listens quietly and respectfully to this story, which shows him warming up to Jim. The story shows Jim’s homesickness, and how he greatly misses his family. It also shows a much less forgiving and more emotional side of Jim’s character. Jim forgave Huck for all of the pranks he pulled on Jim, though Jim would not forgive himself for a mistake years ago. If both characters had not run away together, they would not have the type of relationship they share now. It would be heavily frowned upon if Huck and Jim had this type of relationship while still at their homes because of the racism of people in the south. Huck is still open to new ideas, which is why he becomes friends with Jim.
Throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jim prioritizes other’s needs before his own by sacrificing his freedom to save other characters. When the doctor could not save Tom without assistance, Jim steps out from where he is hiding to help the doctor. In doing so he was “...r[i]sking his freedom...” (Twain 215);whereas, he could have let Tom die to save his own life. But instead Jim willingly risks getting put back into slavery to help save someone else, Tom. Once again, when Huck was staying with the Shepherdsons, Jim decides to wait for Huck. Jim fixes the raft and creates a plan to save Huck and go on with their
Jim and Huck’s friendship evolves throughout the novel and Huck changes the way he treats Jim. Huck started off this novel by playing practical jokes on Jim with Tom Sawyer. Huck was taught that there is nothing wrong with mistreating blacks. After journeying down the Mississippi river with Jim Huck knows he can’t always listen to society.
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain paints the story of a developing friendship between two entirely different people which at the time society considered unacceptable and taboo. Huckleberry Finn is a white thirteen year old boy and Jim is a middle-aged black runaway slave. They meet by coincidence while they are both hiding out on Jackson’s Island located in the middle of the Mississippi River, Huck is hiding from the townspeople who think he is dead, and Jim has runaway and is hiding from his owner. Throughout their journey together, Huck and Jim’s relationship goes from them being mere acquaintances, then to friends, then to them having a father and son relationship.
Mark Twain tells the story of Huckleberry Finn, and his maturity that is developed through a series of events. This maturity is encouraged through the developing relationship between Huck and Jim, as well as the strong influence Jim has on Huck. Jim's influence not only effects Huck's maturity, but his moral reasoning; and the influence society has on Huck. Jim is Huck's role model; even though Huck would not admit it. At first Jim seems to portray a Black stereotypical role with his superstitions and ignorance, although his true identity and maternal role begins to shine through as his interactions with Huck progress.
Huck's Pap thought that he was trying to out do him, because he went to school. You've put on considerable frills since I've been away. I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you. You think you're better than your father, now don't you, because he can't? I'll take it out of you.
Pap is Huck’s father, but Huck does not like him because he is abusive, a drunk, and does not treat huck good at all. Still he taught Huck so much in his life. One of the things he teaches Huck is how to borrow, “it warn’t no harm to borrow things if you was meaning to pay them back some time”. But of course he would never pay them back. Pap also teaches Huck that you don’t need to go to school, but Pap is just afraid that Huck will become smarter than him.
Huckleberry Finn, a young boy from St. Petersburg’, is able to disregard the typical views of African Americans and see them as the humans they are. When Huck and Jim begin to converse and learn more about each other Huck is constantly surprised by Jim’s knowledge; even
	Huck with his anti-society attitude, you would presume that he would have no problem in helping Jim. Yet he fights within himself about turning over Jim to the authorities, by this action within Huck shows that he must have feelings that slavery is correct so that the racial bigotry of the time may be seen. This decision for Huck is monumental even though he makes it on the spot. He has in a way decided to turn his back on everything that "home" stands for, this allows us to leave our thought of bigotry behind and begin to see Jim for what he really is a man.
As juxtaposition to the fantasy of Tom Sawyer's gang, Huck encounters real robbers and murderers on the wrecked Walter Scott steamboat. After hearing their plans, Huck tells Jim, “If we find their boat we can put all of 'em in a bad fix -- for the Sheriff ’ll get 'em” (262); despite his developing nihilism , Huck decides to trap the men by stealing their boat. Here Huck has drastically affected the fate of the men, whether it be dying or being arrested, and eventually he realizes his responsibility: “I begun to worry about the men...I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such a fix” (263). To remedy the situation in response to his sudden guilt, Huck employs (deceives) the captain of the ferryboat to rescue the men. Huck applauds his altruism, saying “I was feeling ruther comfortable on accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang, for not many would have done it” (265) but fails to realize his irony: “not many [people] would have” boarded the wreck in the first place, much less trapped the men. Regardless, Huck has shown he can act freely, but not free from his conscience, which will prove important later in the novel, specifically at the climax.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is about a young boy who helps a slave escape from his master by floating down the Mississippi River on a raft. The story starts with Huck's abusive, alcoholic father, "Pap," kidnapping him from the nice widow, Mr. Watson, whom Huck was living with. Huck manages to escape and meets up with Jim, a slave of Mrs. Watson's, who ran away. As Huck and Jim float to freedom from slavery and other evils of society, they meet a variety of characters from different sides of humanity, including conmen and two families in a deadly feud. On their journey, Jim and Huck grow emotionally closer and Jim becomes somewhat of a father figure to Huck. This is beneficial to Huck because his real father is hardly
In the beginning, Huckleberry Finn hasn?t fully formed opinions on topics such as slavery. He is quite immature and content to just have ?adventures? with his friends. During his journey on the raft, he learns much more about himself through his dealings with others. He establishes his very own standards of right and wrong. Huck?s most important lessons are learned through Jim. He learns to see Jim as a person rather than as a slave: ?I knowed he was white inside? (263). More than any other character in the book, Jim is a catalyst for Huck?s maturity. Through Jim as well as other people he meets along the way, Huck becomes a more defined person who?s more fully himself. His development through the course of the novel proves The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to be a gradual journey toward growth and maturity.
In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Pap is a horrible parent to Huck, and constantly berates him. When he hears about Huck's new 6000 dollar fortune, he comes back to town to get back his son and the money. He is furious when he finds that he cannot get the money, and he becomes even more enraged when he finds out that Huck is going to school and living a civilized life. He says to Huck
In the beginning of the story, Huck seems to feel at ease to be with his father instead of being with the widow, "It was kind of lazy and jolly, lying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no book nor study." (Twain 24) Yet, Hucks' father is not exactly the father figure a child would want. He's an abusive, "But by and by Pap got to handy with his hick'ry and I couldn't stand it. I was all over welts." (Twain 24) and he's not thoughtful of Huck. Once Huck figures his father is crazed and is an alcoholic, Twain, through Huck's eyes, gives readers a feeling of fear towards Huck's father. "There was Pap looking wild, and skipping around every which way and yelling about snakes. He said they was crawling up his legs." (Twain 28) "Then he went down on all fours and crawled off, begging them to let him alone, and he rolled imself up in his blanket and wallowed in under the old pine table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying." (29)
Huck and Jim's friendship undergoes many twists and turns along with the trip the two take down the Mississippi River. With each adventure their friendship grew stronger and deeper from their encounter with the Duke and the King to the riverboat scene the friendship is built one building block at a time. Throughout the novel Jim makes references to the kindness that Huck shows him, but Huck seems oblivious to their new found friendship. "Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on'y white genlman"...(pg. 89) When Jim made this statement Huck realized just how much this friendship meant to Jim.