Point of View

The novel is written from the protagonist Jim’s first person point of view. Because the novel is Everett’s retelling of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, this narrative vantage point is essential to understanding James’s central conflicts and themes. By writing the novel from Jim’s point of view, the author is granting Jim the power, autonomy, and voice he did not have in Twain’s iteration of the story. Indeed, Jim’s narration affords Jim the capacity to tell his own story in his own words. In Part One, Chapter 7, when Jim writes his “first words” after procuring paper and ink, he writes, “I am called Jim. I have yet to choose a name” (55, Everett’s italics). He goes on to say that although his “white so-called masters cannot embrace their cruelty and greed,” he will not “let this condition...