James: A Novel

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) is a sequel to Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). Both novels examine life for both Black and white people in Twain’s home state of Missouri and feature adolescent characters Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Although Tom Sawyer is lighthearted and action-packed, Huck Finn is more somber in tone and theme, and Twain uses his characters to wrestle with big-picture ideas about ethics, morality, and enslavement. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is important within the canon of American literature for the way that it depicts boyhood in a changing United States and for its suggestion that young, white boys are capable of critiquing deeply entrenched attitudes on race and racism. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is often cited as an example of a picaresque novel. Such texts are told in an episodic manner and detail the misadventures of rough-and-tumble individuals who learn a series of lessons through their encounters with other unsavory characters. Although Huck Finn is the narrator and protagonist of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jim plays a key role in the novel’s plot and thematic project. In Twain’s text, Jim is a physically imposing but gentle enslaved man. He is uneducated, but is portrayed as kind, honorable, intelligent, and keenly perceptive. His goodness of character is meant to contrast with Huck’s violent, abusive father.

Everett’s text reimagines Twain’s classic from Jim’s point of view, foregrounding the experiences of enslaved characters. A classic novel about the way white individuals wrestle with the system of enslavement becomes a story in which an enslaved man demonstrates his capacity to remain resilient in the face of racist oppression. Jim, who ultimately sheds his nickname and instructs those around him to call him James, is additionally shown to have agency, will, and determination. He never loses sight of his goal of freeing his family, and although he does not always succeed in his efforts, he tries hard to be of assistance to all the enslaved people whom he meets. Whereas Adventures of Huck Finn is a novel about a boy trying to find his moral compass, James is a novel in which an enslaved man is the narrative’s moral center. By reimagining Twain’s classic from Jim’s point of view, Everett suggests that The Brutality of Enslavement encompassed not only its reliance on violence and bondage but also the way it stripped dignity and humanity from people like Jim who were keenly aware of their own worth as human beings.