“I knowed what it was about. He was thinking about his wife and his children, away up wonder, and he was low and homesick; because he hadn’t ever been away from home before in his life; and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for theirn. It don’t seem natural, but I reckon it’s so. (201)”

The novel Huck Finn is as much a journey inside the emotions and maturity of a young boy as a makeshift journey down a muddy southern river, and such a connection is vibrantly present in the above passage. While observing Jim “moaning and mourning to himself” one morning on the raft, Huck realizes that he is pining for his lost family and that Jim’s level of emotion is strikingly similar to that which white folks would have felt in his position. Such a realization not only develops the idea of Huck’s “unlearning,” the reversal of his inborn stereotypes, but also emphasizes the wonderfully unconventional relationship between Huck and Jim. Literally, the passage echoes Jim’s pervious lament about missing his wife and children and his woes that he cannot be with them (p. 201), along with his now seemingly futile plans to buy them out of slavery. Figuratively, however, Twain juxtaposes the “current” status of black Americans with Huck’s newfound attitude towards them: although it “don’t seem natural” for Jim to be nursing such strong emotions, Huck accepts this with the recognition that he is acting just as a white man would do. Although Huck does not acknowledge this concluding equality, one can sense it worming its way into his mind. The elevating factor of this whole scenario is the bond between Huck and Jim, and, even thought Huck does not treat Jim like a slave, he is beginning to slowly comprehend that he is a human being and is undeserving of inferiority. Huck’s “unlearning” continues to consume his attitude towards his travel companion and helps Huck escape from the closed-minded world he was accustomed to.