Jim kept the dead man's identity a secret because the dead man was Huck's father.  Jim was afraid that Huck would leave him if he found out that his father was dead.  Huck was only running away to escape his father and Jim didn't want to be alone.
Obadiah Youngblood
4/5/2023 05:45:46 am

This serves as a counterpoint to the reckless cruelty of Tom Sawyer, who puts Jim through unwarranted suffering playing out his boy's romance book fantasy with his elaborate scheme to "free" the slave he knows all along has already been legally freed. This tedious set of chapters we are subjected to, of Tom's various schemes to make getting Jim out of captivity, shows Tom's blind indifference to Jim's suffering, just so Tom can have his fun. But Jim, too, has been with holding information from Huck, possibly fearing if Huck knew his father was dead, he'd abandon Jim. Jim's deception is far more understandable and forgivable, but it is a sort of echo of Tom's perfidy, without the nastiness.

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