The reasons for Huck and Jim's journey centres around an attempt to escape the depravity of society; this had an important effect on both characters. It was almost essential that Huck and Jim made the journey to escape the bondage society had thrust upon them. Importantly the journey worked to develop Huck morally. Along the journey Huck and Jim developed a level of relationship they would have never experienced without the journey. .
One of the reasons for the journey of Huck and Jim is to escape the natural cruelty of society. For Jim it is a way out of the slavery and ultimate separation from his family. Whereas for Huck the journey is an escape from his abusive father, and the restrictive "sivilizing- of St. Petersburg. Moreover for both of them, the journey serves as a quest to acquire freedom. In the event of Pap's kidnapping of Huck it provides an opportunity for his final break with society. Having failed to protect him from his father, the community has little more to offer him. Jim and Huck are trapped in the same predicament. Jim has no more to say about his own fate as an adult than Huck has as a child, they both find themselves in peril, and have had to break with the hypocrisy and injustice of society. Jim is an adult, an intelligent and caring person, whose escape has been motivated by love for his family. Huck's reasons are equally sound however he is a child, and behaves like one. As a result they make up a sort of alternative family. Furthermore seeing the justice in Huck's escape makes it easy to recognize the same justice in Jim's eventual escape. In Huck's escape he is trying to avoid more than just having to take baths regularly and going to school, he is trying to escape a society that has structured itself upon a collection of degraded rules and precepts that defy logic. The faulty logic manifests itself when the new judge privileges pap's "rights- to his son over Huck's welfare.