“He's not a slave; he is as free as any creature that walks this earth! (Twain289). Tom Sawyer, one of the main characters in Mark Twain's novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, said these words in defense of his friend Jim, when someone tried to return this man, once a slave, to his former obligations. This classic novel is about a boy named Huck and a runaway slave named Jim. Huck fled his town and ran away with Jim, traveling down the Mississippi River. They faced many obstacles that forced them to work together and ultimately brought them closer. Throughout the novel, there were many events that caused Huck to treat Jim more like a loyal friend than a runaway slave. Mark Twain uses the recurring theme of friendship to illustrate how Huck and Jim broke social norms by learning to care for each other despite the rampant racism of the time. Tom and Huck's treatment of Jim is very different at the beginning of the novel than at the end. At first they treated him very badly because he was actually a runaway African-American slave and racism was a big problem at the time. When Jim and Huck initially meet and Huck hears his story about running away, Jim says "but mind you, you said you wouldn't tell - you know you said you wouldn't tell, Huck" (43) and Huck responds with “people would call me a low-level abolitionist and despise me for keeping quiet” (43). This indicates that Huck is worried about what other people would say and think if they knew he was running away with a slave, because it upsets the ethical system he grew up around. During their journey together along the Mississippi River, Huck also played some cruel tricks on Jim, further showing the mistreatment involved. A trick... middle of paper... that Jim is more of a simple runaway slave and therefore treats him better after getting to know him, as a good and loyal friend Huck's overall opinion of Jim changes from him stating that "it took fifteen minutes before I could get ready to go and humiliate myself before. to a nigger” (87) to “he was a very good nigger, Jim was” (157). Mark Twain uses this device to show how much of a problem slavery truly was and demonstrate that friendships can always be made despite what society says. If slave owners and white citizens took the time to get to know an African American slave just like Huck and Tom did, instead of forcing and torturing them through hard labor, then they would see that the only difference between them is their physical appearances and appearance.Works CitedTwain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1996. Print.