Evidence of Huck Finn’s multiple personality in his self-contradictory—not ambivalent or hypocritical—attitudes about freeing Jim

Many readers have been disappointed with Huck, when, in the last part of the novel, he says he truly believes that he would go to hell for freeing Jim, and when he plays games with Tom while Jim remains literally in chains and fearful for his life. It appears that Huck is a racist at heart, either by ambivalence or hypocrisy.

But there is a third possibility.

If Huck were ambivalent about freeing Jim, he would honestly like to free Jim, but he would not want to become estranged from all his friends and family who believe in slavery, and he would not want to get lynched. People are ambivalent when they are pulled in different directions by conflicting interests.

If Huck were a hypocrite, he would say he wants to free Jim, but he would know that he really didn’t want to, in his heart.

But Huck is neither ambivalent nor hypocritical. He wants to free Jim and he doesn’t want to free Jim. He wants both, honestly, in his heart. How can such self-contradiction be possible?

True self-contradiction is possible only in multiple personality, when one personality honestly thinks one way and another personality honestly thinks another way, and the two ways are incompatible and contradictory.