The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Book Analysis

1. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are best friends that have many things in common and many things that are not in common. Tom is better at using his imagination. In the beginning of the Adventures of Huck Finn Tom makes a robber band with the neighborhood boys. Huck soon decides that it is boring because they were not doing anything that Tom promised they would. Huck could not pretend that they were doing what Tom said they were doing. This is again illustrated in the end when Tom and Huck are trying to free Jim and Huck simply cannot see the use of what Tom is doing with all his talk about rope ladders and messages on the walls. Huck is wiser, more sensible, and more grown up. He thinks that Tom is rather silly and nonsensical because he is talking about matters that are not important in the plot of rescuing Jim. Huck understands that the topics that Tom is talking about are not of use. Tom is more daring, civilized, and pushy than Huck. Tom lives with his aunt Polly and wears store bought clothes. He can make Huck do what he wants him to do. Tom is daring enough to help Huck steal Jim and Tom spearheads the mission and he adds all the extra effects. Both Huck and Tom are loyal friends. They did not give each other away when they were living with Aunt Sally. They both knew Jim and they helped him escape from his prison hut. Neither of them are afraid to lie, in fact, most of the book is contains at least one of them lying.
2. Yes, Twain portrays Jim very realistically for that time period. Back in those days, black people did not go to church. They fell back on superstition because they were uneducated. Education was rare among white people and even rarer among blacks. Jim is very loyal. Black people were loyal to kind masters and people who helped them. The way Jim is portrayed is not demeaning. He is not portrayed as stupid, just as uneducated.
3. The role of the river is simply that it the mode of transportation that Huck and Jim are using to get to Ohio.