When Jim becomes James

'What would white people do to a slave who had learned to read?' This impressive reimagining of Huckleberry Finn seeks to find out.

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is arguably the first great masterpiece of American literature. Rich in humour and social realism, it tells the tale of a young boy from a small town in Mississippi who has faked his own death to escape the brutality of his drunken, sadistic father only to have his hiding place discovered by Jim, a slave owned by his guardian, Miss Watson. Jim is on the run after learning that Miss Watson is planning to sell him, and he hopes to reach the north to become a free man and earn enough money to buy the freedom of his beloved wife, Sadie, and their children. Huck has left his childhood behind, craving his singular emancipation and the possibility of great adventure. Huck and Jim join forces, following the course of the powerful, treacherous Mississippi River as they evade rattlesnakes, conmen, hunger, lynching and slave catchers.

The revolutionary amplitude of this work lies in the fact that Huck and Jim's bond transcends caste and preconception. In flight, they are equals. Huck is struggling with the racist beliefs of his upbringing and Jim is reluctantly dependent on Huck's social permeability to achieve his goal of freedom. Their bond is unique and signifies not only Huck's coming of age but also the coming of age of American literature, as the novel subtly grapples with the great threats to the nation's soul - racism and slavery. Twain's literary innovations include employing the vernacular as dialogue and using humour to underscore the great horror and abuses of a political and economic system built upon the sweat and labour of the enslaved.