Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade

Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade - Hardcover

$28.00
$28.00
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Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade
  • Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade
Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade - Hardcover

Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade - Hardcover

by Shelley Fisher Fishkin
$28.00
$28.00

Book Overview

The origins and influence of Jim, Mark Twain's beloved yet polarizing literary figure

"Astute. . . . Sheds new light on a much-studied character."--Publishers Weekly

Mark Twain's Jim, introduced in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), is a shrewd, self-aware, and enormously admirable enslaved man, one of the first fully drawn Black fathers in American fiction. Haunted by the family he has left behind, Jim acts as father figure to Huck, the white boy who is his companion as they raft the Mississippi toward freedom. Jim is also a highly polarizing figure: he is viewed as an emblem both of Twain's alleged racism and of his opposition to racism; a diminished character inflected by minstrelsy and a powerful challenge to minstrel stereotypes; a reason for banning Huckleberry Finn and a reason for teaching it; an embarrassment and a source of pride for Black readers.

Eminent Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin probes these controversies, exploring who Jim was, how Twain portrayed him, and how the world has responded to him. Fishkin also follows Jim's many afterlives: in film, from Hollywood to the Soviet Union; in translation around the world; and in American high school classrooms today. The result is Jim as we have never seen him before--a fresh and compelling portrait of one of the most memorable Black characters in American fiction.
ISBN9780300268324
Author Shelley Fisher Fishkin
PublisherYale University Press
GenreBiography, History, and Literature
FormatHardcover
PublishedApril 2025
LanguageENG- English
Pages464
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Biography & Autobiography History Literary Criticism Nonfiction

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More by Shelley Fisher Fishkin

Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade

Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade - Hardcover

Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade - Hardcover

By Shelley Fisher Fishkin

About Shelley Fisher Fishkin

Shelley Fisher Fishkin is the Joseph S. Atha Professor of Humanities, professor of English, and professor (by courtesy) of African and African American Studies at Stanford University. She is the author or editor of many books, including Writing America: Literary Landmarks from Walden Pond to Wounded Knee and Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African American Voices, and editor of the twenty-nine-volume Oxford Mark Twain. She lives in Stanford, CA.

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