52 pages • 1 hour read
Percival EverettJames: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Brutality of Enslavement
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussions of sexual assault, abuse, racism, and enslavement.
James’s depiction of the brutality of enslavement is noteworthy for its representations of family separation, racist violence, and sexual assault. It is also noteworthy because it illustrates the role that ideology played in the institution of enslavement. Through the character of Jim, the novel delves deeply into the hypocrisy of both religious and Enlightenment ideals for the way that they propped up the institution of enslavement and ignored Black people in discussions of humanism and equality.
Family separation is one of the first moments in which the brutality of enslavement is on display. The impetus for Jim’s entire journey is his knowledge that he is about to be sold away from his family: “They were going to rip my family apart and send me to New Orleans” (55). He decides to hide out in the woods nearby until he can figure out how to safely escape with his wife and daughter. Notably, the enslavers in Jim’s home in Missouri are not shown to be particularly cruel or physically abusive toward enslaved people. Judge Thatcher even tries to assert his status as a “good” enslaver because he does not resort to violence at one point in the narrative, but Jim quickly disabuses him of this notion. However, they do treat Jim with malign intent when they decide to separate him from his family and sell him downriver. This is an important thematic piece of the novel because it illustrates that no matter how benevolent enslavers felt themselves to be, their actions were still ultimately evil.
Physical and sexual violence are another part of the brutality of slavery, and in this text the enslaved characters are subject to both. Jim is beaten multiple times, he witnesses the beating of George after George steals a pencil, and he eventually hears that George was hanged for the crime. There are multiple instances of enslavers sexually abusing enslaved women, and one such crime is witnessed by Jim, who is powerless to stop it. These scenes help to convey the idea that enslaved people weren’t merely subject to isolated moments of violence. Rather, violence in the pre-emancipation South was used to keep enslaved people in a state of constant fear. Enslavers created and perpetuated a climate of anticipatory panic.
The novel also emphasizes the disdain with which white characters treat Black characters and the lack of respect that they have for Black intelligence. The minstrel shows embody this prejudice particularly well. Minstrel shows were a highly offensive form of theater in which white actors wore blackface makeup and performed skits mocking Black people. These performances were rooted in the racist stereotype that Black people were inherently less intelligent than white people. Jim sees this objectionable practice for what it is: “white folks painting themselves and making fun of us to entertain each other” (166). The irony is that Jim, an enslaved Black man, is the novel’s most intelligent character and many of the white characters, like the Duke and the King, are markedly ignorant.
Jim’s interrogation of Christianity and Enlightenment values is this novel’s most complex indictment of enslavement as an institution. Jim realizes that it makes little sense for enslaved people to believe in the white, Christian God because Christianity is little more than a tool of control: Enslaved people are taught that they must obey their “worldly masters,” and if they perform this docility well enough they will be rewarded in heaven. That Christianity purports to be a belief system that holds all humans to be worthy of God’s love strikes him as a moment of extreme hypocrisy in light of the way that it is used to justify enslavement. Jim also understands the cognitive dissonance required for Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire to assert the equality of all men while disregarding enslavement. Voltaire’s assertion in one of Jim’s dreams that equality is possibly only because Africans can be taught to act European is a particularly vile example of this dissonance. Jim’s observations illustrate the ubiquity of racial bias and the subtler, more insidious ways in which this bias manifests itself.
Resilience in the Face of Racist Silencing
Resilience in the face of racist silencing is this novel’s most important and overt theme, and it constitutes the primary revision of Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Jim, who ultimately renames himself James, is an intellectual, erudite man whose natural speech patterns are eloquent and who is an avid reader of philosophical texts. His character embodies the resilience of enslaved people and speaks to the inherent equality between races. The novel shows Jim’s resilience through its complex and multifaceted representation of code-switching, through Jim’s interest in the world of letters and philosophy, and through Jim’s astute understanding that pretending to be unintelligent is the best way for enslaved people to ensure their safety. Finally, Jim’s resilience is shown through his desire to tell and record his own story.
Code-switching, or the practice of changing one’s speech patterns and dialect as the speaker moves between different social settings, is one of Jim’s main characteristics. Jim and the other enslaved men and women speak in dialect among white people and in standard English among themselves. This is because they realize that white people expect enslaved people to be simple-minded and will punish them if they feel threatened in any way. He even teaches enslaved children to use incorrect grammar among their enslavers to ensure their safety: “Mumble sometimes so they can have the satisfaction of telling you not to mumble” (25). Jim teaches the children that enslavers seek to preserve their control over enslaved people. If they see those who are enslaved as easy to control, they are less likely to use violence to maintain dominance. Jim encourages the children to maintain the illusion that they are less intelligent and fully under the control of the enslavers, to protect themselves.
Jim’s reading habits and interest in philosophy become another space of resilience, and the dreams he has in which he interrogates various white philosophers are another key way in which he finds and asserts his voice. Although Jim is drawn to the idea of humanism and the various discourses of equality that characterized the Enlightenment, he is troubled by the philosophers’ silence on enslavement. He rightly interprets that, for them, “equality” means equality among white men, and he often points out the hypocrisy of the Enlightenment’s commitment to humanism.
Although Jim’s interest in philosophy helps him to analyze the ethics of the Enlightenment, he ultimately realizes that studying is not enough and that he wants to tell his own story. He notes: “I read and read and read, but I found that what I needed was to write” (89). Because Jim lives in a world in which white enslavers define enslaved people unfairly and inaccurately as unintelligent, “lesser” beings, he has been robbed of the opportunity for self-definition. He finally sets out to tell his own story, saying: “With my pencil, I wrote myself into being” (93). This speaks to the idea that it is essential for marginalized people to be able to tell their own stories. Even well-intentioned white people writing about the lives of Black people can succumb to stereotypes and unexamined bias. With Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain set out to write a novel that questioned the ethics of enslavement and humanized enslaved characters, and yet there has been much criticism of his portrayal of Jim. In Twain’s text, Jim is intelligent and honest, but also at times bumbling and the butt of jokes. In James, Jim emerges as a fully developed, multifaceted, and complex character. This is possibly only because he narrates his own story.
Humanity and Friendship
The importance of humanity and friendship is one of James’s key themes. What Jim realizes and Huck comes to understand is that part of The Brutality of Enslavement is that it seeks to rob enslaved people of their humanity: It separates families and punishes community and kinship networks through collective discipline and terror. James illustrates the way that enslaved people retained their humanity through their commitments to friendship, family, and one another.
The importance of friendship and kindness is immediately apparent in the way that Jim treats Huck. Although many in Hannibal disapprove of Huck and Tom’s antics, Jim can see that Huck is both struggling against the violent abuse of his father and wrestling with weighty ideas about morality, justice, and freedom. For this reason, he treats Huck with kindness and does his best to watch out for the boy. This attitude is evident throughout the narrative, and although Huck is ultimately revealed as Jim’s son, Jim values Huck not only because of shared genetics but also because Huck is one of the few white people he’s ever encountered to question the ethics of enslavement. Jim’s friendship and kindness not only help Huck survive but also help him develop morally.
Huck’s loyalty to Jim also embodies the theme of humanity and friendship, and that he is willing to admit that enslavement might be unethical speaks to the author’s interest in hope: Huck openly asks: “How kin one person own another person?” (42). What these kinds of statements gesture toward is the idea that if a generation of young people are willing to question the status quo, then perhaps change is possible. That the possibility of change is rooted in a recognition of the humanity of all humans regardless of race becomes an argument, broadly speaking, for the idea that these kinds of sea changes have to find their origin in humanism and not conflict: Jim remains skeptical that the Civil War will ultimately bring societal change, and he is convinced that even if the war does free enslaved men and women, this will be a side effect of the war and not its true purpose. Indeed, even when he arrives in a free state, he is treated with prejudice by local white people. Jim understands that violent social upheaval does less to change people’s minds than inner changes of heart like the one evidenced by Huck Finn.
Jim also retains his humanity through his treatment of other enslaved people. He encounters many throughout his journey, and he always treats them with fairness and dignity. For example, he tries to free an enslaved woman being sexually assaulted by an enslaver. His humanity is also on display when he arrives at the Graham farm to free his wife and daughter. Jim realizes that the people who live there are treated like animals. He addresses the enslaved men as “men,” he notes, “first because they were men, and second because they needed to hear it” (298). Even in his casual conversation with these individuals, he foregrounds their humanity and lets them know that he respects them as people. Systems of mutual aid arise among enslaved people in multiple places throughout this text, and through this kind of representation, the novel signals the transformative power of kindness and respect.
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By Percival Everett
