Huckleberry Finn and James

For millions of American readers, Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn created an often funny, often lyrical, and
culturally dominant portrait of America in the years prior to the Civil War. As Huck voyages down the Mississippi River with an escaped slave he calls Jim, Huck finds a seductive kind of freedom on the fringes of civilization. Jim, however, remains a vulnerable slave on the run. In 2024’s James, Percival Everett powerfully recasts Twain’s vision of the South by telling the story from the point of view of the enslaved Jim, who knows himself by the more dignified name of James.

As we read these two excellent novels closely, we will discuss their styles and themes. Because truth requires more than one perspective, we will also consider shifts in thinking about race, class, and masculinity between Twain’s time and our own. Lurking behind all that will be the question of how different the promise of freedom looks for Huck and James.