Jim's story about the way he treated his deaf daughter illustrates his deep and abiding love for his family, and sense of decency and compassion that causes him to still berate himself for misperceiving her condition.
Jim is "low and homesick" thinking about his wife and children, and recalls the time when he slapped his daughter Elizabeth for not responding to his command to "shet de do'", not realizing she was deaf. He still harbors remorse for treating her "so ornery", and prays, "the Lord God Amighty fogive po' ole Jim, kaze he never gwyne to fogive hisself as lon'g he live".
Slave owners of the times justified their treatment of the Negro by rationalizing that slaves did not have the same feelings as white people. When Huck hears Jim's story, he is amazed that Jim "cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their'n...it don't seem natural, but I reckon it's so". Jim's story about his daughter shows that the slaves did indeed have the same ties of love and feeling towards their families, and that when they hurt or were separated from their loved ones, they suffered terribly. Jim's compassionate and caring nature also stands in stark contrast to that of the king and the duke. Even though they were white, those two scoundrels had no thought for others beyond what they could get from them, and spent their days lying and cheating, thinking only about themselves (Chapter 23).
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