The adventures of Huckleberry Finn are also the adventures of Jim the runaway slave, but “adventures” does not seem such an apposite term in the second instance. Huck and Jim are often separated, and Jim does not share in most of Huck’s escapades on land, because he cannot risk being seen. This makes it clear that, while Huck and Jim are traveling along the same route, they are on very different journeys. Huck has no particular destination, and the consequences of getting caught are not particularly serious for him. Jim has a price on his head, and his escape is a matter of life and death, something Huck does not always understand.

Huck is probably as color-blind and unprejudiced as it is possible for any white person raised in the South in the era of slavery to be. He is loyal to Jim and generally treats him as an approximate equal, with occasional disparaging comments on his intelligence, education, and credulous nature. This is partly because Huck is not part of respectable, white, slave-owning society himself. However, he has lapses, the most serious of which occurs when he thinks they are about to reach Cairo, which means that Jim will be a free man. At this point, he regards Jim as a piece of property belonging to Miss Watson and is ashamed to be stealing from her. Jim’s wife and children also appear to him as valuable possessions owned by members of his own race. He has the same reaction when Jim is captured by Silas Phelps, even fearing eternal damnation for his part in helping Jim to escape. At such crucial points, the racial divide between Huck and Jim prevents them from enjoying the uncomplicated friendship which existed between Huck and Tom in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.