[H] Laura: Chapters 41-the Last

Through out the time from when Tom agrees to help Huck free Jim from slavery, there is something that he is keeping from Huck, "there’s one more thing – a thing that nobody don’t know but me. And that is, there’s a nigger here that I’m a trying to steal out of slavery – and his name is Jim – old Miss Watson’s Jim.", Tom replies "What! Why Jim is –"(page 170). Tom never completes his sentence, and he begins to reconsider what he was about to say, and from this we know that something is up. As the story continues we see that Tom begins to make things more complicated than they need to be, almost as if it was a joke to him. We finally see the reason for this in the end, because of "Miss Watson setting Jim free in her will; and so, sure enough, Tom Sawyer had gone and took all that trouble and bother to set a free nigger free!"(page 218)

One of the other things that can be noticed is that Huck begins to care more about people, and have more genuine feelings for people, specifically those of color. We see Huck starting to treat Jim as more of a person and less of a piece of property, and actually consider him a living breathing person just like himself "I hope they was going to say he could have one or two of the chains took off, because they was rotten heavy, or could have meat and greens with his bread and water, but they didn’t think of it, and I didn’t reckoned it warn’t best for me to mix in"(215). Also in the Last chapter you see the people have a different view of Jim, and possibly all African-Americans, when in the end the unchained Jim when the realized he had done a good deed and helped to save Toms live. This caused them to view him as less of an inferior. See page 207, where Huck realizes something similar.