Huck Finn Jim's Relationship

419 Words2 Pages
In his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain uses Huck and Jim’s relationship to illustrate the complex influence prevailing social attitudes has on a person’s conscience, and its resulting conflicts. Huck is born into a slave society, where black people are treated as inferior creatures, designed for subjugation. As a result, as he and Jim commence and continue their passage to freedom down the Mississippi River, Huck is conflicted over his immoral assistance of a fugitive slave. Huck explains how his “conscience” reprimands him about his injustice towards Jim’s owner, Miss Watson, “What has poor Miss Watson done to you, that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word”(Twain 66). Huck interprets the voice in his head to be his conscience, the dictator of correct behavior, but Huck’s “conscience” is deformed from years of racist preaching.…show more content…
Subsequently, this internal dilemma reaches its culmination when Huck writes a letter informing Miss Watson of Jim’s location. He comes to a crossroads, where he can either send the letter and sentence Jim to a lifetime of servitude, or he can stop and allow Jim a chance at freedom. Huck expresses his dilemma over the letter, “It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my
Open Document