James Literary Elements

Novel; Historical Fiction; Satire

The novel is set in the antebellum South of the United States, likely in 1861, just as the Civil War is beginning. Jim escapes from slavery in Hannibal, Missouri.

Jim narrates the novel in the first-person singular; the book stays in his point of view.

The tone oscillates between satirical and grave; the mood switches between being ominous, dispiriting, and absurd.

Jim is the protagonist; primary antagonists include Huck, Pap, Miss Watson, the King and the Duke, and Emmett.

The major conflict in the novel is that Jim seeks to escape to a free state where he can earn enough money to buy his wife and daughter, thereby freeing them from slavery; however, his mission is complicated by the need to keep Huck alive while they are both on the run.

The novel reaches its climax when Jim rescues Sadie and Lizzie from the slave breeding farm they have been sold to.

Easter's speculation that Huck is not fully white foreshadows the revelation that Huck is Jim's biological son.

When Jim first tells Huck about his former relationship with Huck's deceased mother, Jim says, "I knowed yer mother, Huck," using understatement to represent their relationship as being less significant than it really was. In reality, Jim and Huck's mother had a romantic relationship that led to Huck's conception.

As a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, James features many allusions to scenes from the original narrative, such as when Huck puts on a dress to sneak into Hannibal, or when Jim won't let Huck see Pap's dead body.

An example of olfactory imagery arises when Jim returns to his former shack, now inhabited by Katie and Cotton, and is comforted by the scent of green wood smoking in the fireplace.

Daniel Decateur Emmett claims that the $200 he spent on Jim was not to purchase Jim as a slave but to "hire" him as a singer; however, Emmett insists Jim must stay with the group until he has paid back his debt to Emmett, meaning he sees Jim as an indentured slave.

When Jim hears the Ohio River meeting with the Mississippi River, he personifies the rivers by suggesting that the rivers are having a conversation about freedom.