A Window to Jim's Humanity: The Dialectic Between Huck and Jim in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Abstract

This thesis examines Mark Twain’s use of the dialectic between the characters Huck and Jim to illuminate Jim’s humanity in the classic novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Over the course of their adventure, Huck learns that Jim is a human being and not property. This realization leads Huck to choose to assist Jim in his escape from captivity, and risk eternal damnation according to his religious beliefs. Huck’s decision is driven by the friendship that develops between him and his fellow fugitive on their adventure. Jim’s kindness and stewardship also provide a stark contrast to the treachery of the characters on the banks of the river. Twain thus crafts a message that slavery and race discrimination are wrong without taking the tone of an abolitionist, combining an amusing children’s story with a profound social message. Although definitive proof of his intention to do so has never been found, human friendship is the sliver of common ground Twain used to reach across the profound racial gap in the United States in the late 19th century. The analysis takes place in four parts: (1) a comparison of AHF to other nineteenth century works that featured slavery to establish it as unique among those works; (2) an analysis of the aforementioned dialectic from a modern text of the novel featuring previous deleted parts from the early manuscript; (3) a review of the critical response to the novel which reveals that if Twain was trying to send a message of racial equality, he was not doing so overtly; and (4) a conclusion in which I posit that Twain found a creative solution to a social problem and cite critical discourse that notes Twain’s course of action. This yielded a work that was both more widely read and timeless than a work that confronted slavery directly. Chapters one, three and four utilize critical dialogue and history from print and digital sources. Jane E. Schultz, Ph.D., Professor