Compare and Contrast Tom and Huck in Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Huck Finn seemed like a rebel without a cause right from the start. He seemed as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Huckleberry Finn was also greatly influenced by Tom Sawyer. Huck even joined a band of robbers called “Tom Sawyer’s Gang” in which a group of young boys pretend to capture, rob, and murder people. He saw Tom as a role model, someone who he could look up to. Huck’s decisions during the course of the novel are solely based on Tom and whether he would see fit to it. Huck appeared as a naïve troublemaker in the beginning of the novel.

The only thing that distinguishes the two characters is that Tom’s motives were based off of the adventure books he’s read, whereas Huck has more common sense because all of his motives are based on experience and not fiction. Tom’s common sense is compared to Huck’s in chapter 3 of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when Tom claims that (he fought a pack of Spaniards and A-rabs) “[Huck says], But there warn’t no Spaniards and A-rabs, and there warn’t no camels nor no elephants. It warn’t anything but a Sunday- school picnic...” (Twain 13) “So then I judged that all that stuff was one of Tom Sawyer’s lies. I reckoned he believed in the A-rabs and elephants, but for me I think different”(Twain 14).

He accepts Tom's insistence of the "Spaniards," "A-rabs," "camels," and "elephants" presence at the Sunday school (227), but silently disagrees: "I judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies" (228). Huck's passivity towards Tom is likely a result of the companionship Tom offers. Huck reports "I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead" (221) just prior to going out at night with Tom and going along with his fantasy-derived descriptions and rules for the gang (222-5). Ultimately, Tom's company is more important to Huck than honesty.

It can also be considered an “opposites attract” scheme by Twain. As Tom has a stable, loving family and a home to go too. While Huck who is considered an orphan (due to being the town drunks son) sleeps where he wants, eats what he wants (if he can) and is never forced to go to school or do his “duties”. Most Importantly, Huck has fended for himself for years, and because of it has developed common sense beyond his years and grounding him self in his harsh reality. This is a stark contrast to Tom Sawyer, who creates worlds in his mind and has deep imagination. Even with all these differences Tom still envies the free spirited Huck and will go to great lengths to prove himself, even if Huck sees Tom as his closest friend already.

Huck often cannot understand Tom’s Romantic ideals due to his practical nature, but Huck complacently follows him because he sees Tom as an authoritative figure. When Tom Sawyer starts his gang, Huck questions Tom’s made up adventures, noting

Huck has had friend’s before he became friends with Jim, but he never experienced what he did with Jim before. Jim and Huck protected each other and looked out for one another, unlike his previous group of friends who were always getting in trouble or harming one another. Huck’s old group of friends were more of people he

A boring lifestyle is never appealing to an imaginative child. In Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Tom is a young child who dreams of an exciting and adventurous life outside his small town. Although while his dreams become more and more ambitious so does his reality. The sudden change in events soon begin to change Tom’s life. As Tom’s small town attracts a criminal everything Tom wishes for begins to come true only in a corrupt way that he never imagined. With all new to keep up with Tom is forced to mature and develop as a character along with those around by leaving behind his childish games and accepting reality. Twain uses character development in Tom and Huck Finn to create unique and special characters.

The first reason why Tom should not have been friends with Huck Finn was that Huck could be a bad influence on Tom. Huck was an untamed ruffian who had bad manners. Huck would teach him bad habits Like being disrespectful to authority. Huck would encourage him to skip school, because Huck didn't go to school.

Tom Sawyer, as a physical boy in the story, plays the role of mob leader in Huck 's life. When the two boys are together, Tom pressures Huck to follow him, and therefore assimilate to mob mentality, by repeatedly dismissing Huck 's ideas. For example, when Huck questions Tom 's story of the genies, Tom says "Shucks, it ain 't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn. You don 't seem to know anything, somehow" (Twain, 19). Here, Tom casts aside Huck 's questions by essentially calling

Tom loves to make every plan more complex like when he was trying to save Jim, a slave. He wants to dig a tunnel all the way to Jim, which is absolutely insane. Then, Sawyer wants to add snakes and different creatures to Jim’s room to make it like a real prison. This is also insane. Tom just wants to add more fun to his own adventure not caring if it troubles others. Tom says “It’s as simple as tit-tat-toe, three-in-a-row, and as easy as playing hooky. I should hope we can find a way that’s a little more complicated than that, Huck Finn” (Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 212). He even knew Jim was a free man. However, Huck is a realistic person. Huck wants to get Jim out as fast and effectively as possible. His plan was to just steal a key and leave with Jim. Huck does this because he views Jim as a close friend, not just a piece of property. Jim also loves Huck like he is own family. Cassander Smith says, “Jim's actions, though, register more than a concern for his own self-interest. He also exhibits protectiveness for Huck's childish sensibilities” (Smith). Mark Twain makes them similar, by being adventurous, but in different ways. By doing this, he once again creates another unique and memorable trait for Tom and Huck. The audience really gets to feel them personally because they can relate to Tom and Huck’s minds. In conclusion, Tom has an overwhelming imagination while Huck is a realistic

Tom Sawyer is one of Huck’s friends that always talks about hitting licks on different people, and he isn’t that smart due to his exaggerating imagery used on pages 12 to 13. Miss Watson is a very religious woman that preaches to Huck about believing in god. Widow Douglas is not liked by huck because he “adopted and tried to “sivillize” Huck”.

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) is a novel about a boy who runs away from his civilized life to eventually free a slave with whom he becomes friends. While this is the main plot, there are also many underlying plots and themes in the novel, such as the realist versus romantic outlook. Twain takes a realist stance as an author and shares it with Huck. Twain, though he seems to ridicule it, also has some romantic aspects and portrays them in various characters that Huck befriends in the novel. One of the main romantic characters is Tom Sawyer, who is also Huck's best friend. The boys' friendship is an ironic pairing created by Twain to ridicule the romantic ideals, and show his stance on the realist-romantic spectrum of

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are two close friends, but are also very different from each other. While one lives in a well-respected family, the other is abandoned out onto the streets. While one boy is liked by almost everyone in the community, the other is looked down on by society. The only similarities the two companions have together are their bravery and courageousness, their strong belief in superstition, and their love of adventure. Despite their many differences, both boys know when to make the right decision, and both value friendship above all.

One way in which Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer are alike is that they are both very brave. In the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck and Jim see a steamboat that had wrecked on the rocks and decide to check it out. Huck thinks that there will be lots of things on the wrecked boat for them to filch. Jim was a

Tom and Huck are happy and rich and they promise to always stay together. The main character of the book is Tom Sawyer. Tom is an imaginative young man. Whenever Tom plays he pretends to be a pirate or Robin Hood and his friends would be his merry men.