Analysis of Major Characters
Huck Finn - In this novel, Huck's age and background are as important as his personality. Huck is a child-only about thirteen years old-who comes from the lowest levels of white society: his father is a drunk and a ruffian who disappears for months on end. Huck himself is dirty and frequently homeless. Although he is being "reformed" by the Widow Douglas at the beginning of the novel, Huck remains a marginalized member of society. The community has failed to protect him from his father, and though he finally gets some of the schooling and religious training that he had missed, he has not been indoctrinated with social values in the same way a middle-class, mainstream boy like Tom Sawyer has been. Huck becomes skeptical of the world around him, and constantly looks to distance himself from it. Since he is a child, Huck is always vulnerable: any adult he encounters has power over him. This allows Twain to compare Huck to Jim, who, as a slave, is also vulnerable to whites, even to a poor white child such as Huck.
Huck's instinctual distrust and his experiences as he travels down the river force him to question the things he's been taught. According to the law, Jim is Miss Watson's property, but according to Huck's sense of logic and fairness, it is not only acceptable but even morally good to help Jim. Huck's natural intelligence and his willingness to think through a situation on its own merits lead him to some conclusions that are right in their context but would shock society. For example, he discovers, when the two meet a group of slave-hunters, that telling a lie is sometimes the right course of action.
Because Huck is a child, the world seems new to him. Everything he encounters is an occasion for thought. Because of his background, however, he does more than just apply the rules that he has been taught; he creates his own rules. However, Huck is not necessarily a kind of independent moral genius. He must still struggle with some of the preconceptions about blacks that society has ingrained in him, and he shows himself all too willing to follow Tom Sawyer's lead. But even these failures are part of what makes Huck appealing and sympathetic. He is only a boy, after all, and therefore fallible. Imperfect as he is, Huck represents what anyone is capable of becoming: a thinking, feeling human being rather than a cog in the repressive machine of society.
Jim - Jim, Huck's companion as he travels down the river, is a man of remarkable intelligence and compassion. At first glance, Jim seems to be superstitious to the point of idiocy, but a careful reading of the time that Huck and Jim spend on Jackson's Island reveals that Jim's superstitions conceal a deep knowledge of the natural world and represent an alternate form of "truth" or intelligence. Jim has one of the few functioning families we meet in the novel. Although he has been separated from his wife and children, he misses them terribly, and the thought of a permanent separation motivates his criminal act of running away from Miss Watson. Jim becomes a surrogate father, as well as a friend, to Huck, taking care of him without being intrusive or smothering. He cooks for the boy and shelters him from some of the worst horrors that they encounter, including the sight of Pap's corpse, and, for a time, even the news of his father's passing.
Some readers have criticized Jim as being too passive, but it is important to remember that he remains at the mercy of every other character in this book, including Huck, as the letter that Huck nearly sends to Miss Watson demonstrates. Like Huck, Jim must find ways of accomplishing his goals without incurring the wrath of those who could turn him in. Thus he is seldom able to act boldly or speak his mind. His excessive goodness, too, is somewhat of an illusion. In most ways he is merely a normal human being: he loves his family and is a loyal friend. It is mostly by contrast with the debased white characters in the novel that Jim appears overly sugary. In fact, Jim could be described as the only real adult in the book, and the one who provides a positive, respectable example for Huck to follow.
Tom Sawyer - Tom is the same age as Huck, and is his good friend. Whereas Huck has always been marginalized by his birth and upbringing, Tom has been raised in relative comfort. As a result, his beliefs are an unfortunate combination of what he has learned from the adults around him and the fanciful notions he has gleaned from romance and adventure novels. Tom believes in sticking strictly to "rules," most of which have more to do with style than with morality or anyone's welfare. Tom is thus the perfect foil for Huck: his rigid adherence to precepts contrasts with Huck's willingness to think for himself.
Tom also represents just how disturbingly and unthinkingly cruel society can be. He knows that Jim is free, yet he is willing to allow Jim to remain a captive while he entertains himself. Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas, too, are tortured by Tom's plotting. Although he too is just a boy, and is appealing in his zest for adventure and his unconscious wittiness, Tom embodies what a young well-to-do white man is raised to become in this society: self-centered with dominion over all.