Huck Finn and Freedom on the River

            At the beginning of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huckleberry Finn is nothing more than a typical southern youth with a predilection for mischief and adventure. After Finn's journey down the Mississippi River he is transformed into someone much more mature in his thoughts and morals that disregards the color of the skin of a man and rather sees a man for whom he really is. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a great American fiction novel written by Mark Twain detailing the escapades of a Caucasian youth named Huckleberry Finn and an African American slave owned by Finn's caretaker named Jim. The novel illustrates a time in history where African Americans were seen as nothing more than workers with no real emotions or thoughts and a boy's struggle with breaking the prejudices that have been firmly instilled in him by society. Throughout the novel, Finn is challenged with his pre-existing notions that Jim is not a human and is surprised by the incidences of humanity shown by Jim. From two significant events in the novel, readers begin to see Huck's questioning of the logic behind society's opinion of African Americans and also the development of morality within a child. .
             One of the most important occurrences in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the maturation of Huckleberry Finn is when he apologizes to Jim and recognizes that Jim is indeed a living, breathing human. While floating down the Mississippi, Huck and Jim get separated because of a fog. They try locating each other by calling to each other using whooping noises and eventually Huck finds Jim again while he is asleep and once Jim awakes, Huck tries to convince Jim everything that happened was a dream. After fooling Jim for a while, Jim finally realizes that Huckleberry was simply tricking him and he feels "ashamed." Jim walks away from Huck visually upset. Huck's next actions were almost miraculous compared to the world he lived in, "It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither.