What Is The Relationship Between Huck And Jim's Relationship

We have discussed in class the nature of Huck and Jim’s unusual relationship and the purpose that Jim, an African American former slave, serves in the novel. I believe the above quotation explains the reason Jim’s character is in the novel, by illustrating the moral shift in Huck’s beliefs. This shift is the turning point of Huck’s moral beliefs which he struggles with through the novel. It is clear after this situation that Huck no longer sees Jim as just a slave, and Jim’s purpose in the novel is to educate Huck on the immorality of treating human beings as anything less than human.
Before this quotation was written, the situation of the novel was Jim was just sold by Duke and Dauphin, and is being held in a shed owned by Tom’s Aunt and
This is first portrayed by all the pranks Huck plays on Jim throughout the beginning of the novel. Huck was raised in a society where it was normal to treat slaves as anything less than human. It is unsurprising then that Huck's initial reaction is to write Jim off as nothing but a slave, especially when in conversation with Jim. One example of this is in chapter fourteen where Huck and Jim are discussing language. Jim does not seem to understand why French people speak in a different language that what Jim is used to hearing. We know that as a slave Jim was not educated so he would not know much about other cultures. Huck tries to explain that French is another language the French people speak but becomes exasperated and says, “I see it warn’t no use wasting words—you can’t learn a nigger to argue. So I quit.” (pg. 83). Huck does not see the point in “wasting words” because he does not believe Jim has the capacity to understand
A little after Huck was lost in the fog he find Jim and tries to play another prank on him by pretended they were together all along and Jim had dreamed the fog. Jim is completely relieved that Huck is alive and well, so relieved in fact that Huck starts to feel guilty for tricking him. He says, “But that was enough. It made me feel so mean I could almost kiss his foot to get him to take it back. It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger” (pg.89). He then goes on to say that he did not even feel sorry for lowing himself to Jim’s level of status, and that we would have never played that trick on him in the first place if he would have known how it would make Jim feel. This shows the shift from the beginning of the novel where now Huck is considerate of Jim’s feelings. Though the racial bias is still present, it seems to be fading away more and more and their adventures occur, so that by the time Huck tears up the letter it is evident that Huck’s perception has