The prospect of being sold further down South is what makes Jim so fearful. The politics of a corrupt political system that empowers the policing of fugitive slaves, and a history that normalizes human bondage and makes Huck feel guilty for fleeing with Jim as 'theft' are all manifest in the novel. These plot points also shows how social aspects of geography can develop character: were it not for the Mississippi, Huck's views about race would not be changed and challenged. Through fleeing with Jim, Huck learns that he is not stealing Jim, but that Jim has...

Without the presence of the plantation system and the laws that keep it in place, Huck would not have been taught that African-Americans are inferior and deserve to be enslaved in the first place. Finally, Huck's resolve to seek out life in Western territories as a kind of final means of escape at the end of the book would only be possible in the America of the 19th century, a land where it was still possible, physically, politically, economically, and historically to envision living in an endless wilderness, away from social boundaries and bonds.