The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has stood for one of the greatest novels of all time and due to the sensitive time period of slavery in which the book was written and published in, it lends the novel to be a very dated yet treasured piece in American history. The social .
commentary provided about the ongoing relationship between Huck and a runaway slave Jim, engrosses and encapsulates the reader as the novel evolves. The book begins with Huck, an early adolescent boy, whose major goal in life is to have adventures and not be civilized. Jim on the other hand is a black slave and therefore a "nigger" whose place is so below that of human that he is regarded as an animal. As the story progresses Huck gradually .
metamorphasizes to see Jim as a human being, and not very different from himself, as they endure many journeys and close calls that build an unbreakable friendship. Because of their profound relationship Huck goes through many situations and circumstances through the course of the story where he is put into moral quandaries about his behavior of helping Jim runaway from slavery and face his own conscience as he debates aiding Jim in his escape. .
Huck and Jim have one major similarity, and that is that they are both runaways. The Widow Douglas and Miss Watson took Huck in in order to civilize him properly by making sure he went to school, dressed appropriately, ate correctly, had manners and had a place to live. During the first part of the book Huck finds this all to be cramping his style and longs for adventure without having to be clean all the time. Eventually Huck's drunken excuse for a father shows up and more or less kidnaps him for his money. Although Huck endures beatings and other maltreatment he stages his own death to get out of there and run away. Jim on the other hand was a black man who clinged to the idea of freedom in order to get his wife and children back.
