Huck Finn

Pages 57-72, to me, are the most interesting of the book so far. I really love the changes in Jim and how the relationship between Huck and Jim sort of alters into something different. The pages of 63-65 are very interesting. During these pages, Huck tries to fool Jim into thinking that the fog never really happened. Here, you see a lot of Jim's humanity shine forth. As Huck continues to go along with his plot to fool Jim, Jim begins to "'terpret" his "dream" and later tells Huck that the leaves, rubbish, and smashed oar mean that, "What do dey stan' for? I's gwyne to tell you. When I got all wore out wid work, en wid de callin' for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz mos' broke bekase you wuz los', en I didn' k'yer no mo' what become er me en de raf. En when I wake up en fine you back agin', all safe and soun', de tears come en I could a got down on my knees en kiss' yo' foot I's so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin' 'bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie." This quote shows that Jim is not the dumb black man that he was made out to be before. He is now transforming into a human with real emotions and real ideas. He knows what is going on and feels mad that Huck tried to make a fool out of him. Huck later apologizes to Jim and says that it took him fifteen minutes, "before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger-but I done it, and I warn't every sorry for it afterwards, neither." This quote really struck me because Huck is realizing that Jim isn't just a dumb slave and that no matter how much slavery makes black out to be in-human, they really are just like white people. Another part of this reading was very suspenseful when Huck thinks about how what he is doing is so wrong. Jim keeps saying how thankful he is to Huck and how it is all because of Huck that he will gain his freedom. This makes Huck feel AWFUL because all the while that Jim is saying this, Huck is debating whether or not to turn him in. Even when the slave capturers come up to Huck, he must make a decision of whether or not he wants to turn Jim in. In the end, Huck ends up lying and saying he is with his sick white father. Huck later ends up deciding that he'll do whatever is most convenient for him from now on, because it seems that either way Huck goes (turning Jim in or not) is terrible. In addition to these two parts of the book, there was the part where Jim and Huck argue over whether King Solomon was correct or not in threatening to chop a baby in half. Huck says that King Solomon is wise, but Jim believes that Solomon is stupid and wonders why the hell he would waste a child by chopping it in half. This is establishing (further) the idea that Jim is smart and has opinions and knows what is going on. Jim ends up winning the argument because Huck has nothing else to rebuttal with, even though he says it's because Jim is stubborn, but truly this shows Jim becoming worth so much and meaning a lot.