The opening of the book deals with the most serious issue depicted; the idea of slavery and the response of the southerners to its injustices. The majority of the American experience of slavery and its response are shown through the relationship between the main protagonist, Huck and his friend Jim. When Jim first approaches Huck to tell him that he has run away from his master Huck replies, “People would call me a low down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum- but that don’t make no difference. I ain’t agoing to tell..” (1379). In a time when it was illegal to aide slaves in their escape, Huck was just beginning to start his moral dilemma of his loyalties to the law, and his friendship with Jim. This brings about a side note on the American experience of slavery that is not as developed as the response to slavery in Huck and that is: how does a person act and feel in a
Cited: Twain, Mark. “ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” The Harper Single Volume American Literature. Ed. McQuade et al. New York: Longman.1999. 1355-1522 Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999, p.2 and 6.