In Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn, when Jim gets the forty dollars from Tom, I believe his
is giving himself a pat on the back. Jim, as we have seen
throughout the story, is extremely superstitious. He reminds Huck that he knew he would
be rich again, and that he believes in signs—omens. He
says:
Dah,
now! doan' talk to me—signs is signs, mine I tell
you...
Jim has really put up
with a lot of nonsense and had his worries. He was frightened for Huck's life when he
thought he'd lost Huck—but perhaps he has also recognized that Huck finally realized
what a good friend Jim is. Tom's ridiculous adventures have especially inconvenienced
Jim, and for a man whose fate has for so long not been in his hands, he has not only
been delivered (alive) from Tom's machinations, but has also been proven correct about
giving credence to signs along the way. Best of all, he has been rewarded in a way he
could probably only dreamed of before—signs or no
signs.
This small patch of "being right" would have been
self-affirming to someone like Jim.
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