Huck Finn Blog Post 2

Huck Finn and Jim act as a family for one another. Huck, growing up without a very supportive family, never spent quality time with his father and barely knew his mother. Jim is a runaway slave who is separated from his family most of the time. When Jim and Huck find each other on the island together, there is no one else there to live with. They connect and soon find that they have a family-like relationship. Jim acts as a fatherly figure for Huck. “Hello, what’s up? Don’t cry, bub. What’s the trouble” (Twain, 77)? It is important for Huck to have someone like Jim who will comfort him in his sorrow and accompany him in his loneliness. Although Huck has a father, he is an irresponsible alcoholic and pays little attention to Huck’s happiness. A parent like Jim is just what Huck needs while living in the woods all alone. The two look after one another and Jim is very much like a parent for Huck. He always wants to shelter him in every way.  “’It’s a dead man. Yes, indeedy; naked, too. He’s been shot in de back. I reck’n he’s ben dead two er three days. Come in, Huck, but doan’ look at his face-it’s too gashly” (Twain, 57). This incidence is significant because Jim knows that if Huck were to look at the face of the dead man, he would not enjoy what he saw. Therefore, Jim does not allow Huck to look at the face; he is protecting him.

Protecting each other is not the only reason why Huck and Jim resemble a family. They also act as a family because they entertain each other and enjoy each other’s company, the same way a family would. The woods do not provide very much entertainment for the two, so therefore they rely on each other for their distraction from the undesirable state they are in. “I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes and earls and such, and how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on, and called each other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and so on, ‘stead of mister; and Jim’s eyes bugged out, and he was interested” (Twain, 81). Sharing stories and spending time together is a common occurrence for Jim and Huck. The two of them have a very special relationship; such a strong bondage between a young white boy and a grown slave is extremely uncommon.  They live in a home together in the woods where they do family-like things such as eating dinner together. “’Jim, this is nice,’ I says. “I wouldn’t want to be nowhere else but here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot cornbread’” (Twain, 55). This quote shows that not only do Jim and Huck practically have to put up with one another, but they enjoy each other’s presence.  This is an important quality for a family to have, and it is definitely a quality that the two possess.