Jim, who ultimately chooses to go by his full name, James, is the novel’s narrator and protagonist. He is a learned, erudite man who enjoys reading and writing, and teaches the children on the property where he lives. He is a loving family man with a wife and daughter. He is an enslaved African American man, and through the complex, multi-faceted nature of his character, the novel explores issues related to race and racism in the United States.

Jim is based on the character Jim in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. James reframes the story through Jim’s eyes to argue that the lives and experiences of enslaved people in pre-emancipation America merit as much interest and attention as those of their white counterparts. Whereas Twain’s novel foregrounds Huck’s experiences, coming of age, and interest in ethical development, James foregrounds Jim’s keen intellect, humanity, and insightful observations about the cognitive dissonance required to support the enslavement of an entire racial group of humans. An important part of the novel’s reframing is Jim’s interest in writing. He pens a manifesto of sorts to set his own story down on the page, and this is an important meta-commentary on the importance of marginalized people telling their own stories.