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Jim
The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s Comrade
Series: Black Lives
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Brief Description
The origins and influence of Jim, Mark Twain's beloved yet polarizing literary figure 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...
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Jim
$4499
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The origins and influence of Jim, Mark Twain's beloved yet polarizing literary figure
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Description
The origins and influence of Jim, Mark Twain's beloved yet polarizing literary figure
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 a 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.
Series: Black Lives
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Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780300268324
Publisher: Yale University Press
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 24 June 2025
Country: United States
Imprint: Yale University Press
Illustration: 28 b-w illus.
Audience: Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Width: 140.0mm
Height: 216.0mm
Weight: 250g
Pages: 464
About the Author
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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Jim
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...Paperback$5800Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 2-3 weeks
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