Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The raft gives Huck and Jim time to talk, but it never removes them from slavery's reach. Jim needs to avoid capture while Huck can go ashore under invented names. Their unequal exposure to danger matters whenever the story appears to offer a simple picture of shared freedom.

Huck's conscience is unreliable because much of his moral instruction has defended ownership of people. In the decisive letter-writing scene, he believes that helping his friend will condemn him. The reader must judge the teaching as well as the child who has absorbed it.

The novel's comic inventions can also become instruments of cruelty. The frauds who call themselves a king and a duke exploit trust for money. Later, Tom Sawyer uses the conventions of adventure stories to make Jim's escape needlessly difficult. The change tests how readily readers accept amusement at another person's expense.

Huck escapes confinement by his father and stages evidence of his own murder. On Jackson's Island he discovers Jim, who has fled after hearing that Miss Watson intends to sell him south. They become traveling companions on the Mississippi.

After repeated dangers and encounters with two swindlers, Huck discovers that the man calling himself a king has sold Jim to the Phelps household. Huck writes a letter revealing Jim's whereabouts, then tears it up and decides to help him escape.