Jim is one of two major characters in the classic 1884 novel ''

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' is a picaresque novel by American author Mark Twain that was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, th ...

'' by

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...

. The book chronicles his and

Huckleberry Finn Huckleberry "Huck" Finn is a fictional character created by Mark Twain who first appeared in the book ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876) and is the protagonist and narrator of its sequel, '' Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884). He is 12 ...

's raft journey down the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

in the

antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern US ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum architectu ...

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, Dixieland, or simply the South) is List of regions of the United States, census regions defined by the United States Cens ...

. Jim is a

black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

man who is fleeing

slavery Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

; Huck, a 13-year-old white boy, joins him in spite of his own conventional understanding and the law.

Character inspiration

The character may have been a composite portrait of black men Twain knew, or based on the "shrewd, wise, polite, always good-natured" George Griffin, a former slave whom Twain employed as a butler and treated as a confidant."After Long Absence, Twain's Butler Is, to Return"
''New York Times'' (6/18/1994): 27. Twain grew up in the presence of his parents' and other Hannibal, Missourians' slaves, and listened to their stories; an uncle, too, was a slave owner.

Fictional biography

Jim's is one of the several spoken dialects called deliberate in a prefatory note. Academic studies include Lisa Cohen Minnick's 2004 ''Dialect and Dichotomy: Literary Representations of African American Speech'' and Raphaell Berthele's 2000 "Translating African-American Vernacular English into German: The problem of 'Jim' in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn". While the racial slur "nigger" is used extensively throughout the novel, Jim is only referred to as "nigger Jim" once, in the note Huck Finn writes to Miss Watson in Chapter XXXI ("Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim...."). Jim himself is introduced at the beginning of Chapter Two, seen at midnight by the two boys, Huck and Tom, standing silhouetted in the doorway of the outdoor detached kitchen. He hears them approach and inquires into the darkness; he states that he will wait to hear the sound repeated, and he sits at the doorway until he dozes, relieving the hidden narrator's tension indicated by an entire paragraph on an itch unscratched because of fear, of which Jim is unaware. Jim flees from his owner after overhearing her discussing whether or not to sell him for 800 dollars. He meets up with Huck on Jackson's Island. The two travel on a raft together, and Jim plans to reach

Cairo, Illinois Cairo ( , sometimes ) is the southernmost city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the county seat of Alexander County, Illinois, Alexander County. A river city, Cairo has the lowest elevation of any location in Illinois and is the only Illinoi ...

, so that he can be free and buy his family's freedom as well. His character and perceptions dominate the novel and include spirituality, parental tenderness, and nonviolence: he leaves unmolested two rogues – Jim's term is "rascals" – who have taken over the raft despite their vulnerability as they sleep drunk. When the rogues sell Jim as an escaped slave, the character Tom Sawyer arrives. Tom knows that Jim is a free man by this point (having been freed by his owner, Miss Watson, in her will), but uses the opportunity of Jim being imprisoned to act out prison escape fantasies from books he has read, refusing Huck's simpler plans that would free Jim easily, but without the drama that Tom sought. Jim, who is now on a plantation owned by Tom's aunt and uncle, is freed by the boys. However, Tom is shot by a pursuer. Jim gives up his freedom to help nurse Tom back to health, and is taken back to the plantation in chains. Upon waking up, Tom admits that he knew Jim was free the whole time, and Jim is released. Tom pays Jim 40 dollars, and the trio departs. Percival Everett's book ''James'', portrays ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' from Jim's perspective and adds an alternate ending to the story.

Academic reception

As a study of two slaves escaping, ''Huckleberry Finn'' is largely sympathetic to the plight of escaped slaves and critical of the institution of

. However, beginning in the 20th century, the novel was frequently criticized for depicting Jim as a stereotype, and Tom as an aggressor. According to Professor Stephen Railton of the University of Virginia, Twain was unable to fully rise above the stereotypes of black people that white readers of his era expected and enjoyed, and therefore resorted to

minstrel show The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century. The shows were performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for the purpose of portraying racial stereotypes of Afr ...

–style comedy to provide humor at Jim's expense and ended up conforming to rather than challenging late 19th-century racist stereotypes.

Portrayals

Actors who have portrayed Jim in films and TV: * George H. Reed (1920) * Clarence Muse (1931) * Rex Ingram (1939) *Frederick Spencer (1944) *

Archie Moore Archie Moore (born Archibald Lee Wright; December 13, 1913 – December 9, 1998) was an American professional Boxing, boxer and the longest reigning World Light Heavyweight Champion of all time (1952 – 1962). He had one of the longest profe ...

(1960) * Serge Nubret (1968 in ''Les Aventures de Tom Sawyer'') *Feliks Imokuede in (1973 in '' Hopelessly Lost'') * Paul Winfield (1974 and 1990) * Antonio Fargas (1975) *Blu Mankuma (1979) * Samm-Art Williams (1986) * Courtney B. Vance (1993) * Jacky Ido (2012) * Miles Mussenden (2014) *Daniel Edward Mora (2015) *Deren Tadlock (2016 in '' Jean-Claude Van Johnson'' as Victor playing Jim in a fictional movie)

Notes

Note 1: Jim's wife is only mentioned in passing in ''Huckleberry Finn'', and her name is not mentioned in that book. She was given the name Sadie by Nancy Rawles in ''My Jim'' (2005). Jim's wife is also referred to by the name "Sadie" in the short story "Rivers" by John Keene, which appears in his collection ''Counternarratives'' (2015). She is similarly named Sadie in Percival Everett's 2024 novel, '' James''.

References

External links

Cliffs Notes Jim
{{Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Watson, Jim Watson, Jim Fictional slaves Male characters in literature Literary characters introduced in 1884 Fictional characters from Missouri Adventure film characters