what is Jims attitude to the adventure he and Huck have just experienced?
Since its publication in 1884, Mark Twain's Adventures of Blueberry Finn has been construed to have numerous meanings, many of them controversial or unfounded, and the human relationship of Huckleberry Finn and Jim in Twain'south book has not been exempt from this scrutiny and radical interpretation. Two scholars, Leslie Fiedler and Axel Nissen, have taken a drastic pace in explaining the significant and motives backside Huck and Jim'southward relationship. In their controversial essays, Fiedler and Nissen advocate that Huck Finn and Jim develop a romantic relationship based on homosexual feelings and angel; notwithstanding, it may exist conspicuously discerned from the text of Huck Finn that this reading of the book is tenuous and that, instead, readers can more accurately understand Jim and Huck'southward relationship to function as an adopted father and son who gradually grow in their understanding of and respect for each other equally equal human beings.
Though Fiedler and Nissen take fabricated some strong claims in their essays, it is evident that Huck and Jim'south relationship is not based on homosexual tendencies or feelings and is rather motivated past far different reasons. The various arguments put forrard past Fiedler and Nissen tin be refuted through examples of Huck'due south and Jim'due south characteristics, personalities, and deportment in the book and shown to actually be a demonstration of their familial, parent-child relationship.
Through his essay, Fiedler communicates the message that Huck Finn "celebrate[southward] the common [homosexual] dearest of a white man and a colored" (49) and early on in his essay, Nissen posits that "Huck and Jim negotiate an uncommon blazon of romantic friendship across barriers of race and generation" (lx). Nissen uses specific instances in Huck Finn to support his position.
One expanse of the book he refers to is the terms of endearment, such every bit "honey" and "republic of chile" (Twain 112), that Jim calls Huck. Although Nissen maintains that this type of affectionate language must necessarily prove that Jim has romantic feelings toward Huck, there is plenty of room for other, more than convincing, interpretations. Information technology is more plausible that Jim is instead viewing immature Huck equally his paternal responsibility and is treating him in a fatherly, affectionate way that prompts the use of these expressions of fondness.
Chadwick Hansen appositely points out that the word "beloved" was "the commonest discussion used by an adult southern Negro of either sex for a white child of either sex toward whom the Negro was at all well disposed" (54) and that Jim uses this term not only for Huck but too for Tom Sawyer later on. Nissen also declares that "Jim's trigger-happy reaction" toward Huck later the episode in the fog "tin can[not] exist read otherwise than as a genuine feeling of hurt and betrayal based on 18-carat feelings of amore for Huck" (70-1). This exclamation is overly speculative, and it is not as well literal to read Jim's behavior simply as a surprised, incredulous response equally a friend to Huck's unjust treatment of Jim later on all they have been through together as comrades in flight.
A third area of controversy that Nissen brings upwards in his essay is that near the end of the book "Jim is sidetracked from his goal of securing liberty for himself and his family unit by the responsibility he feels toward another person shut to his heart—namely, Huck" and that Jim keeps Pap'southward death a hush-hush from Huck until the book'due south closing scene out of the fright of "losing Huck'south companionship and affection" (85). On the contrary, a much more accurate explanation for Jim's delay in revealing Pap'due south fate to Huck is based on Jim's goodness and sensitivity of eye toward the young boy who has become similar a son to him.
As a caring male parent figure for Huck, Jim makes an endeavour to proceed Huck from having to witness anything then "gashly" (Twain fifty) and disturbing every bit a dead body, and his hesitancy in disclosing the identity of the body as Huck's father is simply out of a genuine concern for Huck: seeing a dead body would have been graphic enough for an adolescent male child, but the knowledge of the body being his own begetter would have greatly heightened the trauma involved. Tuire Valkeakari aptly explains that Jim's decision to withhold this data from Huck allows Jim "to protect the fatherless boy equally unselfishly as if Huck were his own son . . . without Huck having to consciously face or admit the process of substitution" (35).
Equally Huck Finn opens, Huck and Jim'due south relationship lacks the trust and love that is necessary for a healthy father-son relationship and their roles are very different from what they volition ultimately go. For the majority of the book's events, Jim is portrayed equally the runaway slave of Miss Watson who teams upward with Huck Finn, and he is at commencement shown to be similar to that of a stereotypical blackness slave characterized, Hansen explains, by the simple-minded, superstitious, "comic stage Negro . . . who is oftentimes the butt of low comedy, and whose essential quality is his insensitivity to mental or to physical pain" (46).
Indeed, Jim becomes the object of Huck and Tom's sense of humor early in the book's second chapter too as several more times throughout the book. When Huck is introduced to u.s.a., he has not yet realized the human value of Jim and treats him simply as an easily manipulated person of whom he tin can take reward. Besides the numerous pranks Huck plays on Jim, Huck uses Jim every bit his personal fortune-teller and superstition adviser. After his dramatic escape from Pap'south motel in the wood, Huck meets Jim on Jackson's Island, at which time the two forge an unlikely camaraderie, though they still have nevertheless to come up to a common understanding of 1 another.
Because a close familial human relationship betwixt a white boy and a black slave like Huck and Jim necessarily poses some major problems, the two feel a gradual progression as they grow in their understanding and realization of each other's worth and value. Ultimately Huck and Jim come to share a unique relationship characterized by the affection and intendance between a male parent and child.
Because a close familial human relationship between a white boy and a blackness slave like Huck and Jim necessarily poses some major problems, the ii must feel a gradual progression as they grow in their understanding and realization of each other'due south worth and value. As they interact, both Huck and Jim get acquainted with the valuable qualities present in each other's graphic symbol and take one another every bit adopted family members. Huck, as already mentioned, initially views Jim equally a less-than-equal slave and feels justified to exploit Jim's gullibility and simplicity for his own entertainment; however, with each new joke or trick he plays on Jim, Huck is struck with an increasing sense of shame and penitence for what he has done, gradually acquiring an agreement of Jim's equality and value equally a human existence and father figure.
In Andrew Solomon'south words, the "evolution [of their closeness] is conspicuously indicated by the progression of the iii practical jokes Huck plays on Jim" (22). The first joke, when Huck and Tom hang Jim'due south hat above him, causing Jim's superstitious suspicions to rise immensely, establishes Jim's foolishness and inferiority in Huck's mind and provides a good laugh for the ii boys. The second 1, however, when Huck puts a dead rattlesnake in Jim's bed on the island, attracting the snake's mate to come and get out Jim with a deadly seize with teeth, is a serious situation, and Huck begins to feel a prick of sorrow and guilt when his "applied joke" invites the possibility of death. Occurring farther along in Huck and Jim's journey and relationship, Huck's third prank, making Jim think that the episode in the fog was only a dream, leaves no room for amusement, and Jim'southward unexpected, somber response shakes Huck out of whatever lingering country of denial or ignorance regarding Jim'due south real, human qualities as an equal and intelligent private.
When Jim rightly calls Huck "trash" for treating him in that fashion, Jim assumes the role of admonishing parent, and Huck meekly submits and humbles himself to Jim, who "made [Huck] feel and then mean [he] virtually kissed his foot to get him to have it back" (Twain 84). Another set of incidents that alerts Huck to Jim'south natural, human being characteristics is Jim's attitude toward his married woman and children, whom he is forced to leave behind at the point of his flight from Miss Watson. At first, Jim'south boldness and insistence that he would someday buy his family out of slavery or "go an Ab'litionist to go and steal them" (Twain 86) astonishes Huck and lowers Jim's continuing in Huck'southward eyes, simply later on, when Jim is brokenhearted over the loss of his family and his past harsh handling of his deaf daughter, Huck begins to grasp the significance of Jim's humanity and realizes that Jim "cared just every bit much for his people as white folks does for their'n" (Twain 150).
Huck finally starts to understand that black people are but as natural as the white, and that they take their equal rights, familial affections, and "natural human desires" (Joshi 3) only as their white counterparts do. For Huck, this is another pace toward gaining that valuable friendship and familial human relationship with Jim. Following the escape from the Wilks' and the subsequent recapturing past the Duke and the King, Huck begins to view Jim equally a fatherly confidant and decides to accept a "long gabble . . . and [tell] Jim everything" (Twain 201).
Although Huck has a addiction of lying "to conceal and preserve his private life" (Knoper 128) from the public globe, he doesn't listen telling Jim everything, thereby demonstrating his newfound trust and confidence in Jim. Huck's last decision to "go to hell" (Twain 206) rather than betray Jim comes subsequently Huck hears of Jim's capture, mourns over his loss, and recalls the kindness and unselfishness Jim has displayed toward Huck as a father would toward a son, and as Ballad Freedman says, "he comes to a more centre-felt conception of what's correct" (103).Continued on Next Page »
Source: http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1668/the-father-son-relationship-of-jim-and-huck-in-mark-twains-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn
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