Jim Vs. Watson's Runaway Slave

For the two months after Miss. Watson died Jim was a free man, but he wasn’t truly free until Tom told him that he had been set free in Miss. Watson’s will. He was still acted and was treated as though he was a runaway slave. Society determines your social status, the people around you are the ones who judge you and determine where you will fit into their social construct. People forced into slavery are only there because someone else put them there. Jim was free the moment he ran away. He may have been a wanted man, but he was still a free man. He had the ability to make choices for himself and do as he pleased as soon as he walked away from his societal role as a slave.

Jim has spent his whole life being ordered around by others. In a sense,

he is the lowest man on the totem pole. He is a slave. And as a slave, his entire life is determined by his owner. A slave owner has the ability to split up families and sell them off to whoever happens to be the highest bidder. And when Jim finds out that Miss. Watson was going to sell him down south, away from his family, Jim decides the best thing he can do is leave. He chose to run away rather than continue to live his life in slavery. Even though his society is even more cruel to a runaway slave because they consider them ungrateful.
But he didn't consider himself free even after he ran away. He thought that he wasn’t free until he “reached the Free States in the North” only then would he be “a free man and would not have to worry about being sold ever again” (49). Explanation. As they got closer to Cairo, Huck started to realize that Jim is “almost free” (53). “How could they have caused Jim to become a slave again—after his months of freedom—for forty dirty dollars!” (119).
When Huck chose to run away from his abusive father he “climbed through [the wall] to freedom” (20). By choosing to leave his situation, Huck also freed himself. He freed himself not only from Pap but also from the constricting “sivilized” society that he would have had to conform to if he went back to live with Miss. Watson. Huck left his society because it was trying to force thing on him that he does not agree with.
When an individual chooses to go against the rules that have been put in place by society, they are in a way freeing themselves. Because when they have chosen to disobey the rules, they are no longer part of the rules and can live by their own free will. When they choose to ignore what their “conscience” is telling them, the individual can focus on what their heart is telling them. And by following their own beliefs rather that the beliefs of society, the individual frees themselves from _______________.
Jim gave away his freedom to help the boy who happened to be keeping him in chains (152). “Tom Sawyer had gone through all that trouble and all that pain to set a free slave free!” (154).