Throughout literature main characters need someone to lean on and look up to, a right-hand man per se. This person can come in the form of a peer, a blood relative, or a father/mother figure. The main character in Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck Finn, grows up somewhat an orphan due to his absentee father. Nevertheless, Huck finds emotional shelter in his guardian’s slave Jim. In contrast to Huck’s biological father, Jim proves himself to be Huck’s “true father” by protecting Huck, scolding Huck, and teaching Huck that all humans possess the same emotions no matter their skin color. At the beginning of the novel, the reader learns that Huck’s father abandoned him and he lives with a widowed woman. The reader also learns about Huck’s past rebellious antics with his best friend Tom Sawyer. As the reader soon finds out, Huck’s rebellious nature stems from his lack of a male figure to teach him wrong from right. When Twain introduces “Pap,” Huck’s initial reaction is fear. He says, “I used to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much” (18). The reader infers that Pap used to beat Huck before he abandoned him. As well as…show more content… Huck plays a handful of jokes on Jim throughout the novel, but arguably the most serious joke was the episode in the fog when Huck made Jim believe it was a dream. Huck tells Jim that he “hain’t seen no fog, nor no islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing” (84). Jim’s unexpectedly responded by telling Huck that people who put dirt on the head of their friends are trash and they should be ashamed (85). Huck felt so bad that he says “it made me feel so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back” (86). Jim’s role as a scolding father influences Huck, a white boy, to realize Jim’s real, human qualities as an equal individual despite his statue as an African American