Tom Sawyer vs. Huck Finn

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were both characters created by Mark Twain. Tom Sawyer is the main character in the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn is the main character in the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer were alike in many ways but they were also very different.

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 little nervous about infringing but Huck said that if Tom were there, he would have gone. Once they were on the boat they saw a fight. Huck was scared but he knew that if Tom were there he wouldn’t back out, so Huck wasn’t going to either.

Another way that Tom and Huck are alike is that they are both always getting themselves into trouble. It seems that where ever they go, trouble follows them. They are also both interlopers and very fractious. Both of the boys are also very erudite (smart). In the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck tricked the two men with guns out of finding Jim. He told the two men that it was his father back on the raft. When they said that they were going to go see for themselves Huck replied, “ Pap’ll be mighty much obliged to you, I can tell you. Everybody goes away when I was them to help me tow the raft ashore, and I can’t do it by myself.” Then they men felt sorry for Huck and each gave him twenty dollars.

One thing different between Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer is that Huck has no family. Huck lives with the widow and her sister, Miss Watson. In the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer made a gang and they would kill people. One of the rules of the club was if anyone told anyone else about what happened they would kill that person and their family. One of the boys in the gang pointed out that Huck had no family so it wasn’t fair for him to be in the gang. Huck thought he was not going to be able to be in the gang but then “all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss Watson - they could kill her”. And he was allowed in the gang because the boys agreed that they could just kill Miss Watson if Huck told anyone.

Another thing different between the two boys is Huck often gets confused or distracted. When Huck went to Judith Loftus’s house he dressed as a girl and first told her that his name was Sarah Williams. Later he forgets that he is a girl and threads a needle like a boy, throws like a boy, and even forgets his own name. “Sarah’s my first name. Some calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary,” he said.

One more difference between Tom and Huck is that Tom is very violent and Huck is easy going and helpful. In Tom’s “gang” he said that they would kill everyone, even women. When one of the boys asked if they had to kill everyone Tom says, “Oh, certainly. It’s best. Some authorities think differently, but mostly it’s considered best to kill them....”

Even though Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are two very different people, they are also alike in many ways too. And in the books, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck and Tom are always friends.

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