Preview

Huck Finn vs Tom Sawyer

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1970 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Huck Finn vs Tom Sawyer
Huck Finn VS Tom Sawyer In Mark Twains’ Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck is a complex individual who is intelligent but also a tedious admirer. When Tom is not around, Huck is a leader and knows how to handle any trouble that comes his way. When Tom Sawyer comes around, Huck loses confidence and becomes a follower. As the adventure progresses, Tom makes an appearance and immediately takes control. Huck tries to voice his opinion, but is only criticized on how basic his plans are. Tom comments that Huck’s idea, in one case, is an “infant-school[y] way of going thing[s]” (180). Huck is more of a simple person, whereas Tom wants to make an adventure into everything he does. Huck having a simple mind does give him the advantage. When Tom comes up with these ridiculous plans Huck could step in and tell Tom about his own plans, but he never does. If the group were to follow through with Huck’s plans, they would not only save time but they would also save the risk of getting caught and getting into trouble. Huck is a shy guy with a simple imagination. He does not have the wild ideas as Tom does. Huck thinks that he is not as bright as Tom because he cannot come up with theses elaborate plans, so he thinks that his plans are stupid, but actually they are better. In this case, simple is better and Huck should have stood up for his ideas. When Tom and Huck tiptoed past Jim while he was in the kitchen, Jim came outside because he heard a noise. He says, “Who dah?” as he walks toward Huck and Tom and stands right between them without knowing (4). Jim sits down and says, “I’s gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it agin” (4). Jim soon falls asleep under a tree that he is laying against. Huck just wanted to get out of there, but Tom wanted to pull a prank before they left. Tom initial plan was “to tie Jim to the tree for fun,” but Huck said it would be too risky (4). Instead, Tom took three candles, and paid five cents for them as well as putting Jim’s hat on

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    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.…

    • 1686 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Initially Huck is influenced by his very well known friend Tom Sawyer who seems to only bring bad qualities and morals from Huck. Tom used books and his society views on the world to create fantasy and romanticism like situations. Creating a gang for , using only his words “Nothing but robbery and murder.”Ch2. The Tom Sawyer Gang was what they called themselves and while creating this gang there many claims that they were going to attempt murder, rob people of their valuables, and just brag about how many people they killed or who they killed and who and how many they marked. Huck shows very poor morals to even join this group. The worst part of hm joining this group was how he was allowed to get in. Everyone had claim they would let their…

    • 205 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • 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

    Most books read in high school end up being stories of the coming of age time for the main character. For Huck Finn this is no exception. Throughout his journey along the river he changes as a person from being a boy to a man. He starts out as a carefree and uncivilized boy attempting to break free from the constrains of civilization. He takes nothing seriously and everything is a temporary pleasure for him. This attitude was clearly expressed when Huck and a few of the other boys meet with Tom Sawyer to discuss creating a band of robbers. Huck readily offers up Miss Watson, one of his guardians, as a sacrifice if he broke the rules. This earlier version of Huck didn’t think twice about killing off one of his loved ones. Later however, Huck’s morality develops and he matures into a thoughtful and loyal young man who understands such things such as “…it don’t make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience aint got no sense,” (175). It was a few moments like that in the book that show that Huck really came of age and that he had grown up and his character had really changed. The book is yet another coming of age phenomena that young adults can relate with and should read about. Huck’s very different lifestyle may…

    • 737 Words
    • 2 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
  • Good Essays

    Jim was intelligent, caring, passive and most importantly, a father figure of Huck. Huck met Jim after he faked his death and ran away to an island. Jim ran away from Mrs. Watson because he overheard that she is going to sell him. Huck and Jim had similar goals throughout the story. Their goal was to be free. Jim and Huck however becomes closer and eventually builds a strong friendship throughout the journey on the Mississippi River. Jim starts off as just a runaway slave but later on, Jim strives for freedom at Cairo. The relationship between Huck and Jim wasn’t just a simple relationship but it came to the point where Jim was almost identified as Jim’s father. Jim has children himself but since they’re not with him, Jim felt the need to support Huck. After getting separated on the raft because of a mist on the river, Jim said, “I could a got down on my knees en kiss your foot I’s so thankful” (pg 65). This shows that Jim and Huck need each other considering that they are both separated from their families and has no one else that can support them. Also, this part represents a typical father and son relationship because a proper father would be worried if their son had been lost and later when found, they are overly happy. Unnecessarily, Huck lies to Jim that the whole mist thing was all a dream but later, Jim finds out that it wasn’t perhaps a dream. Jim felt betrayed and became angry. Since Huck felt so bad after…

    • 1003 Words
    • 5 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
  • Good Essays

    In a world in which everyone tells him it is okay, he has to discover it for himself. In the novel, Huck often does not want to be told what to do and is very rebellious. He looks up to Tom because of how Tom is able to do adventurous things. Huck’s growth is explained in, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn provides a means of observing his growth and change. As the narrative progresses, the succession of thefts performed by Huck- from the imaginary "julery" and "ingots" stolen by Tom's harmless band of robbers, to the very real act of slave stealing on the Phelps's farm- char Huck's growing moral depth and awareness. “(Link 305). He slowly grows as he becomes more aware of what is going on around him in the world he is living in. He learns to value his friendship with Jim over what society thinks about slaves. When Tom agrees to help Huck with stealing Jim, Huck agrees to follow the plan that Tom comes up with. Tom makes the situation so much more complicated and yet Huck goes along with it. Huck is typically more practical, but he goes along with Tom’s plan because in a way he does not want to have to be the leader. Without guidance, similar to Holden, Huck has to learn about things for himself. He has no one really to rely on when Jim is captured. Huck questions whether or not he should just turn Jim in or save him. By making this moral decision, he grows…

    • 1126 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through rejecting an education he is rejecting society and the religious, racist propaganda of the time. Huck paves his own path with help from Jim, a runaway slave and Huck’s most influential teacher. Jim encourages Huck to question many of the teachings he received from both Pap and Miss Watson. Multiple times, Huck chooses to go to hell rather than conform to cultural standards. This journey to maturity and independent thinking is contrasted by Tom Sawyer. Tom lives in the society Huck purposefully avoided and because of that is immature and less morally astute. Huck’s journey down the river with Jim shows that a true education can not be found in formal schooling, but in one’s own mind, one’s relationships with others and contact with the broad…

    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tom Sawyer Adventurous

    • 1015 Words
    • 5 Pages

    While Huck and Jim are on the river, they come across a sinking ship. Huck wants to go on the ship and steal from it, but Jim does not want to go near the ship because it is sinking. Huck says to Jim, “Do you reckon Tom Sawyer would ever go by this thing? Not for pie, he wouldn’t. He’d call it an adventure – that’s what he’d call it, and he’d land on that wreck if it was his last act” (Twain 67). Huck shows Tom is thrill-seeking by telling Jim this. Huck knows Tom would do anything for a good adventure. Tom would never pass up the opportunity to explore something and would always make the most of the escapade no matter how dangerous. Later in the novel, as Tom selfishly tries to help Huck save Jim, he comes up with many elaborate plans. Huck knows Tom’s plans are impractical, but Tom will not listen to him. When asked why he went through all the trouble to set Jim free when he already was, he replied with, “Well, that is a question, I must say; and just like women! Why I wanted the adventure of it; and I’d ‘a’ waded neck-deep in blood to” (Twain 289). Instead of telling everyone Jim is free like a practical person would, he leads Huck and Jim to believe the idea of breaking Jim out is extremely necessary. All he wants to do is go on adventures without a care in the world. Instead of thinking about others, he thinks about all the fun, adventurous things he could do as an alternative. Mark…

    • 1015 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Is Huck Finn A Hero

    • 992 Words
    • 4 Pages

    “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” are told in first person therefore giving a more personal narrative coming from Huck and having a greater impact on the reader. Since this personalization is applied to the story it shows just how wild Huck's life is. From being kidnapped by his own father, to staging his own death, it all makes up for one adventures tale. The literal thinking that comes from Huck lets him tell the story in a very literal way. Huck shows that he does not have very much imagination as the story goes along. This makes the story go straight to the point rather than having any form of cognitive or comprehensive thinking coming from the narrator. Considering Huck is a more basic person he seems to have a large amount of loyalty…

    • 992 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck Finn Racist

    • 916 Words
    • 4 Pages

    While all this is happening, while Huck is playing these tricks on Jim, we have to remember Huck is still a kid. He’s only around 13 years old, and that’s what kids do. They don’t think before they do things, and they like to play pranks and tricks on people. Huck was just trying to have fun with Jim, not be mean to him and be racist to him. In the novel Huck and Jim have a good relationship, they become friends and Huck starts seeing him as a person rather than a slave. They form a bond, a friendship.…

    • 916 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Mark Twain’s novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is a coming of age story in which Twain manipulates his own ideas through to condemn the traditions that the South practiced and enforced during the time of the book’s publication. The viewpoint of the novel is narrated by the protagonist, Huckleberry Finn, through first-person narrator-participant point of view. Through Huck’s eyes, readers understand and judge the South as a whole, the faults within its systems, and the fortunate saving qualities. At the start of the novel, Huck immediately introduces himself to the audience, and he displays his character and voice through his viewpoint. Huck says, “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom…

    • 1536 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Huck Finn

    • 1632 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Huck, who grew up playing tricks on others with Tom Sawyer, realizes for the first time that African-American slaves are capable of feeling pain, and he learns that true friends do not try to hurt each other. After being separated from Jim all night in the fog, Huck finally finds him asleep on the raft, and he decides that it would be funny to play a trick on the less intelligent man. After making up a story and trying to convince Jim that the entire night was just a dream, Huck jokingly comes clean and tells Jim the truth, but he does not expect Jim’s serious reaction. Jim stares Huck right in the eye and says, “When I wake up en fine you back agin, all safe en soun’, de tears come en I could a got down on my knees en kiss’ yo’ foot I’s so thankful. En all you wuz thinking ‘bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie,” (Twain 95). Jim storms off, leaving Huck to contemplate his decision. For the first time in his life, Huck has it brought to his attention that his actions can cause emotional pain to others, and he sees his first glimpse of how much Jim cares for him.…

    • 1632 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    huck vs tom

    • 7389 Words
    • 19 Pages

    The American novel reached one of its highest peaks during the life of writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name, Mark Twain. With its late development with a self-established status, the American novel appeared in the late 18th century, one of its first creators being considered, although debated along time, Washington Irving. Before Irving, the American novel didn’t have a voice of itself, but always had a tendency towards borrowing from the European form and style, thus being seen by critics as inferior. Starting off with the Colonial literature, which was built on religious grounds and then evolved to the exploration of socio-political problems, including the conflicts with the native Indians, all representing a means of the struggle to find a sense of nationality, a self consciousness as American individual; continuing with the revolutionary period which brought a shift from the Puritanical ideas to the Enlightenment concepts that implied more diversity, and with the post-independence period which had a historical foundation. When it appeared, the American novel had a unique style consisting of humorous and satirical writing on one hand and romantic and nature-inspired poetry on the other, including Edgar Allen Poe’s romantic grotesque form.…

    • 7389 Words
    • 19 Pages
    Powerful Essays