Jim

"He is sometimes slave who should be master; and sometimes master who should be slave." [Lat., Fit in dominatu servitus, in servitute dominatus.]

Oratio Pro Rege Deiotaro (XI)

by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered to be possibly the Great American Novel by many scholars and is certainly the best known of Mark Twain's works. These scholars both powerfully praise and powerfully depreciate Twain's artistic judgment in relation to Huck's character, themes, and political statements, but Jim's place is often ignored or overlooked. Jim's character is very important in his roles in supporting Huck as a father figure, his example for Twain's portrayal of slavery and racism, and in his own right as a multifaceted, moving, and developing individual.

Jim plays the role of the father by providing for Huck's physical, personal, emotional, and moral well-being. He begins by simply supplying necessary food and shelter for the "dead" boy. Jim continues in this role throughout the novel. He seems to always be out hooking fish or cooking make-shift meals for Huck. He takes it upon himself to build "a snug wigwam [on their raft] to get under in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep things dry." (48). On the other hand, when Huck is at his real father's (Pap's) cabin, he has to stop up the holes "to keep the wind from blowing through the chinks and putting the candle out" (18-19). Jim also advises Huck about his personal life. From the very beginning of the novel when he sees his father's boot prints, Huck establishes a precedent of going to Jim for advice. Despite the slave's fearful superstitions, his advice is mostly sound, as seen when he advises against boarding the Walter Scott and against looking at "Pap's" face. Huck's physical well-being is consistently under Jim's protection. He passively protects Huck from the villains and nice old ladies of civilization and town meetings by keeping the raft always ready to dash back to the protection and solitude of the might Mississippi river. By lying to the King and Duke for him after they catch up with Huck on the river and threaten him, Jim actively risks himself to physically protect Huck. Where Huck had no one to shield him before, now he has big Jim to advocate him against people that are like Pap or the King and Duke, as a father should. Although Jim's ability to defend him is limited because of his status as a runaway black slave, he guards over his adopted ward to the best of his abilities. Jim's concern for Huck's emotional well-being is also shown. He showers Huck with verbal and physical affection. One of the memories that causes Huck to stick with his decision to help free Jim is that of how Jim would "always call [him] honey, and pet [him]" (161). This was a welcome change to the lonely boy who had only what is in this day and age considered very dreadful child abuse from his real father, boring and self-gratifying lectures from Miss Watson, and tears of pity from the widow. Jim gives Huck more; He gives Huck friendship. Before Jim, Huck never had any true friends. Although Tom comes the closest, he consistently degrades Huck and puts his ideas down. When Huck tries to "be his true friend" (176) and discourage him from freeing Jim and embarrassing himself and his family, Tom replies by "shut[ting] [him] up, and say[ing], `Don't you reckon I know what I'm about? Don't I generly know what I'm about?'" (176). Again, when Huck has a sensible idea regarding how to free Jim, Huck puts him down with, "Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you, I'd keep still" (182). In spite of their age and social differences, Huck has free, amiable, and easy conversations with Jim. Another one of Huck's memories at a critical dedication point is of when he and Jim were "a floating along, talking, and singing, and laughing" (161). Huck can speak very freely of more intellectually based topics, such as history, nature, and ethics, to Jim. While Pap considers his education "hifalut'n foolishness" (15), Jim eagerly listens to him when he "read considerable . . . about kings, and dukes, and earls, and such" (57). This opening up of himself is an important development for a boy who has little conversation recorded previously. Despite the fact he narrates the whole story, Huck does not talk much at all except for when he is with Jim. Indeed, there is no reason for him to talk. Whenever he tried, his father abused him, Miss Watson scolded him, and Tom mocked him. It's even more important for Jim. This is when Jim learns that he can indeed learn and he can outwit a white boy in arguing over Frenchmen. Lastly, Jim plays the role of the father by providing for Huck's moral well-being. Jim provides the moral rule against which different situations are measured. Jim's integrity sticks out like a sore thumb in comparison with the dishonesty of the world beyond the protective boundaries of the raft. His honest remorse for striking his daughter who was "plumb deef en dumb" is shared just previous to Duke posing as a deaf mute to get the Wilks' money. The gentleness and guilt Jim shows for his behavior towards his daughter underlines the duplicity and greediness of the King and Duke as even more contemptible. It is "through Jim's sensitivity [that] the entire Wilks episode is thrown into much more precise focus" (Cox 73).

Even so, Jim has more meaning just than filling a role. Jim is Twain's representative of slavery and proves all judgments the author has against the practice. Twain has been accused of being unrealistic in his portrayal of slaves by having Jim be treated fairly well by all of those who owned him or had custody of him throughout the novel. There is a reason that Jim is not beaten or physically injured by a master; the purely physical brutality of slavery is not its horror. Even the breaking up of families is not truly the greatest evil of slavery, though it is the one Jim can best feel and put forth an argument against. The single greatest evil and horror of slavery is the conscious and authorized circumventing of one person's free will by another person or persons. "The right of a nation to determine its own form of government does not include the right to establish a slave society (that is, to legalize the enslavement of some men by others). There is no such thing as 'the right to enslave.' It does not matter, in this context, whether a nation was enslaved by force, like Soviet Russia, or by vote, like Nazi Germany. Individual