ghly touted Christian compassion notwithstanding. Only when Tom Sawyer reveals that Jim has already been set free by his owner's will does Jim finally gain his freedom. Clemens clearly recognized a capacity for human brutality with which our century has become only too familiar. The final chapters end in a crescendo of activities in the tradition of many novels, and many loose ends are tied up in the same tradition. One end that remains conspicuously untied is Clemens's characterization of Jim. Although Jim is depicted as a man with most of the qualities of a human being, he comes across as little more than a human vegetable. He seems to be lacking such natural capacities as a distaste of or even hatred toward those who have made most of his life an unending torment. He good-naturedly goes along with almost everything the two teenagers propose for the sake of his rescue, even if these half-baked pranks threaten his life, prolong his agony, or endanger his freedom. He refuses to go along only once when Tom proposes that he sleep with a rattle snake. Surely, even a slave in the pre-Civil War South had more spine as well as greater intellectual depth than what Jim displays. Is it possible that exploring the human soul of a slave was beyond the literary capacity of Samuel L. Clemens? Or did Clemens avoid the topic intentionally in order not to stir up excessive hostilities toward his novel as well as against himself? In other words, did Clemens bend to the racist whims of his time with excessive subtlety for the same reason that Huck Finn bends to the intellectual whims of Tom Sawyer? I do not know if an answer to this question exists. Perhaps it can be found somewhere in Clemens's personal papers; perhaps he took the answer with him to his grave. It is possible that he was not even aware of this particular shortcoming, but for an author of his stature this seems unlikely. What is likely enough to be acceptable at face value is ...
