Preview

Compare and contrasts Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer and analysis of why Tom was used only at beginning and end of book. Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
962 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Compare and contrasts Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer and analysis of why Tom was used only at beginning and end of book. Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
Compare and contrast Tom and Huck. Consider why Twain uses Tom in the beginning and the end of the novel.

"Tom told me what his plan was, and I see in a minute it was worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a man as mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides. So I was satisfied, and said we would waltz in on it" (232).

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn details the journey of Huckleberry Finn and a run away slave Jim. Huckleberry Finn's blind trust in his friend Tom Sawyer's plans have led Huck to some strange situations. As seen in the Sunday school "Arab" fiasco, where Tom, Huck and their gang attacked a Sunday school picnic, Huck accepts Tom's imagination as fact and disregards his own logic. Tom's reliance on the rules is more for style than to do what is moral. In sharp contrast to Tom's rule-following attitude, Huck relies on his own intuition to make decisions. This clash between romanticism and realism is prevalent throughout the book. Tom Sawyer and his grandiose plans represent Romanticism, characterized by a belief in the ideal, whereas Huck represents realism or the viewing of everything as it actually is, without idealization. Twain also uses the characters of Huck and Tom to represent a conflict between Romanticism and Realism, as well as a conflict between Society and Freedom. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain contrasts the characters of Tom and Huck to contrast Romanticism and Realism, as well as Society vs. Freedom in both the beginning and end of the novel to highlight the maturation of Huck.

Tom Sawyer was born and raised middle class. As such, Tom has access to a stable family life as well as education and books. The books provide Tom's sense of adventure. Always searching for an adventure, Tom uses elements of his books to influence his adventures. Tom's reliance upon the rules laid down in books is evident in his discussion of ransom:

"Why blame it all, we've got to do it. Don't I

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Huckleberry Finn is always ready to go on any type of adventure with his best friend Tom Sawyer. Also, the pair are extremely superstitious. Huck is discriminated against for a myriad of reasons. Some being, he is the son of the town drunk, so the adults frown upon him. Because of his father’s lifestyle he is basically an orphan, he has to find his own food, clothes, and a place to sleep. He also does not attend church or school. Opposite to that, the boys of the town envy him for his freedom and lack of discipline. The Widow Douglass who…

    • 505 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huckleberry Finn is a novel set in the rural south of the United States during a period in history when slavery and racism were part of everyday life. The novel introduces two main characters: Huck Finn, an adventurous but naïve, white boy, and Jim, a runaway slave whom is travelling with Huck down the Mississippi River. Throughout the course of the novel, both characters are faced with their individual internal struggles; Huck in particular is faced with the pressing notion of whether or not he should turn Jim in to his rightful owner and do the “right” thing, or disobey the law and help Jim obtain his freedom. Being nothing more than a foolish and naïve boy, Huck does not know the meaning of true love and friendship, until Jim opens up to him and they begin to bond no longer as white boy and black slave, but as humans.…

    • 873 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huckleberry Finn is a static character. Throughout the realistic, historical fiction novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, the main character Huck travels with a fugitive slave, Jim. Constantly, Huck’s internal conflict between helping a fugitive slave, and turning him in, divides him. Huck ultimately ends up helping Jim, but treating him as subhuman, and taking advantage of his companionship. Huckleberry Finn wavers in his moral ideas, but undergoes no development. He starts to challenge and change his views on his stance of racism, but the book ends with him reverting to his old racist views as he had in the beginning. Furthermore, he does not show development in the sense that he constantly does what society expects of him, as shown in his treatment of Jim.…

    • 1093 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    I took fish lines and matches and other things-everything that was worth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I wanted an ax, but there wasn’t any, only the one out at the woodpile, and I knowed why I was going to leave that. I fetched out the gun, and now I was done” (43).…

    • 1370 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is about the journey Huck goes through, facing the challenges of living on a raft and constantly looking for food and money. However as Huck makes his journey down the river he makes a moral one as well. In the beginning of the novel Huck’s way of thinking is childish and heavily influenced by the widow and Pap, by the middle of his journey his own morals start to change and he is able to identify right and wrong despite what society thinks, and finally by the end Huck see’s how corrupt civilization is.…

    • 964 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tom Sawyer Role Model

    • 605 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Tom Sawyer, a mischievous, brave, and daring boy who finds himself caught up in adventures of murder, love and treasure hunting. One may question whether or not Tom is a good role model. On the surface, it appears that Tom is neither an entirely good nor entirely bad role model, but rather a boy maturing from a troublemaker into a young man. Tom’s behavior and treatment of others prove him to be a negative moral role model. In the end Tom's conscience helps him make good decisions, Sometimes his friends and his mind wants them to go on adventures and mess around, in the end he is not a good kid in today's world.…

    • 605 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck Finn Hypocrisy Essay

    • 475 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Huck watches this as it occurs, horrified. With this particular situation, Huck sees that even those society views as being the ‘most’ civilized, may actually be the opposite. He leaves his time with the Grangerfords changed. He goes through the rest of the novel with the knowledge of how hypocritical society can be, and it helps him rationalize his decision to aid Jim’s escape. Finally, at the tailend of the novel, Huck sees the greatest hypocrisy of them all through Tom. Despite Tom flat out stating that he only used Jim to find a sense of adventure, he turns around the next second and acts as though he has only ever been supportive of Jim as a freeman. The hypocrisy is shown in his decision to keep the information that Jim had been freed in Miss Watson’s will to himself, rather than sharing it with Huck and Jim when he reunited with them. Throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain satirizes the hypocritical nature of society in the hopes that readers will empathize with the conditions experienced in the pre-Civil War era and apply it to their own…

    • 475 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Huck Finn Essay

    • 529 Words
    • 16 Pages

    Mark Twain’s picaresque The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a mesmerizing tale of a runaway boy and a fugitive slave on a series of satirical escapades. Though it was written in post-Civil War America, the story is set in an earlier time. Slavery is still prominent among Southern states, and education is scarce. The protagonist, Huckleberry, is trying to escape the clutches of his abusive, alcoholic father. His companion Jim is fleeing from slavery, on a mission to become his own proprietor. While on their journey, they encounter many people who reveal their true colours. Although some characters are exposed as gentle, patient, and caring, as in Jim’s case, the majority of others are shown to be selfish, disgusting and hostile. This novel was written in a light that prominently displays Twain’s opinion of society and cynical view of the human race. The characters that most noticeably demonstrate these beliefs are the Duke and Dauphin, Sherburn, and Pap Finn.…

    • 529 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an important novel that shows how the two worlds of Huck and Jim collide to bring out the problems of racism and slavery before the civil war. Huck was a young, naive boy who is oblivious to the outside world. Jim was a slave with a big heart who looked at the world in a whole different perspective. Throughout the journey together Huck and Jim’s relationship was shaken by the cold reality of racism and slavery, thus slowly opening Huck's eyes to the world around him and creating a new foundation for friendship. When Jim and Huck go on their journey outside of St.Petersburg, Missouri a whole new world was opened up to them, they saw the country like never before.…

    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tom Sawyer Adventurous

    • 1015 Words
    • 5 Pages

    A character in a novel has a way of helping to move the plot forward. They provide whatever the plot needs whether it be comedic relief, drama, anger, or a push of action to get the plot moving forward. The novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain is set in the American South in the 1850s. In the novel, Huck Finn fakes his death and runs away with Jim, a runaway slave. They encounter many obstacles while both on the river and on land. By the end of the novel, Huck and Jim learn many things and grow closer to each other. Tom Sawyer is Huck’s best friend who influences what Huck does frequently throughout the novel. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer is portrayed as selfish, adventurous, and dramatic.…

    • 1015 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck Finn Research Paper

    • 983 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain that contains the worldwide and continuous conflict of racism. Huck's father, Pap is concerned with the conflict of a black man's right to vote in his own town. Due to his skin color and the racism in his society, the black man was not allowed the right a white man has. Huck apologizes to Jim, a black slave, to earn his respect back even though his society shows no respect or sorrow for a black man. A stranger individually defends Jim despite what the color of his skin is. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain uses Huck to depict the conflict of racism through his struggle as an individual with his society.…

    • 983 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck Finn

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel which displays a young boy named Huck's dilemma on whether he should turn in a run away slave named Jim, that he has been helping escape to freedom. Huck must decide upon what he feels is the right thing to do, even if that means going against society and changing his own morals. Huck exemplifies how his opinion of society's beliefs changes throughout this novel.…

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck Finn

    • 572 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he develops the plot of the story alongside the adventures of Huck and Jim, the main characters, allowing him to discretely criticize society. The two main characters both run from social injustice and both are distrustful of the civilization around them. Huck is considered an uneducated, backwards boy, constantly under pressure to conform to the "humanized" surroundings of society.…

    • 572 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Is Huck Finn Too Mature?

    • 1012 Words
    • 5 Pages

    to oppose the views of society and risks going to hell for his friendship with…

    • 1012 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck Finn in Education

    • 1500 Words
    • 6 Pages

    For education to serve its purpose of helping students develop an understanding of themselves and the world around them, it must provide uncensored information and ideas. Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn undoubtedly supports that goal of education. The classic novel discusses issues regarding society’s greed and cowardice through a young boy’s, Huck Finn, perspective. Huck Finn is born into the American, white south during the mid 1800s when slavery and racism towards blacks was the norm. He is influenced by his surroundings to believe that slavery is right. The “civilized” adults dictate to him the nature of blacks as property. However, as a rebellious adolescent, Huck runs away from his home and journeys down the Mississippi river with a black slave named Jim. Across this adventure, Huck develops a different set of morals from his culture and slowly comes to view Jim as a person and a friend. America’s past white, southern culture is a testament to the gruesome reality of society’s ability to institutionalize its selfish nature. Mark Twain emphasizes in a genuine manner the ignorance of America’s slave-holding past and the importance of questioning the morals of society and as such, the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is worthy of belonging in compulsory education.…

    • 1500 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays