It is vitally important to realise how this important
scene in the novel links in with one of the major themes: the coming of age of Huck and
his maturing into a character who is able to make decisions often against the values and
rules of society. Note how, having been separated from Jim, Huck does what Tom Sawyer
would have done and told a massive story about what had happened to try and trick Jim.
However, when Jim realises how he has been tricked and communicates to Huck how upset
this has made him, Huck shows that he is beginning to think about the feelings of
someone else instead of his own fun and amusement.
Not only
that, but his action in apologising to a black slave shows Huck's first victory over the
values of his society. For a white boy in a world where whites were superior to blacks
to apologise to a runaway slave was unthinkable, therefore indicating the way that Huck
is learning to listen to his moral conscience more than the dictates of
society:
It
was 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.
Symbolically, then,
his actions have much more importance than they seem to do at first
glance.
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