Huck Finn's Mental Condition Character Analysis

Jim cares about Huck’s mental stability, this is shown when Huck and Jim come across a dead body on a houseboat. This springs Jim into father-figure mode saying, “‘It’s a dead man… shot in the back… don't look at his face, it's too ghastly’” Later on in the story, Jim reveals that this dead man was Pap. He realizes that it would be severely scarring for Huck to see his own father the way he was, so Jim shields Huck’s eyes, proving his care for Huck’s mental condition.
Along with his protection of Huck’s mental state, Jim also strips away at Huck’s racism. When Huck and Jim are reunited after being separated, Jim is elated to see Huck alive and well. Huck decides to play a trick on Jim, and make him believe the whole thing never happened. Jim

realizes he has been tricked and says, “‘That trick is trash’” (Twain 86). Huck then realizes what he’s done is wrong and thinks to himself, “It made me feel so mean… fifteen minutes before I could… go and humble myself to a black person, but I did it” (Twain 86). Jim scolds Huck for being racist. Huck realizes his mistake, and after thinking it over for fifteen minutes, he decides to apologize to Jim. This is the first step on Huck’s journey of anti-racist encounters. He comes around in larger ways later on, but it was Jim who gave him the first push along the road to get him going.
Jim has been protective of Huck, and given him new ideas, but what about his biological father, Pap? For the small amount of time that we knew him, Pap presented himself as a horrible, drunkard father who is only out for Huck’s money. During one of his alcohol fueled endeavors, he believe his son is the angel of death, “He (Pap) chased me round… with a clasp knife, calling me the angel of death, and saying he would kill me” (Twain ). Pap only has two things on his mind, whiskey, and money. When he gets ahold of both of those things, he nearly kills his only son. These are clearly not the characteristics of a good father figure.