Opposites: The Relationship of Tom and Huck
Opposites: The Relationship of Tom and HuckIn Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the central characters Tom and Huck, may at first appear to be very similar if not the same person. When looking closer at the novel, Sawyer exaggerates their differences, which tend to be extremes. He singles out aspects of their education, each boy's imagination, and also they way they dealt with multiple situations in his sharp development of character persona. Aimed at life in the 19th century, Twain depicts two types of people in the 19th century: the by-the-book, impractical, glory seeking Tom Sawyer and the education despising, practical, and morally sound Huck Finn. Huckleberry Finn, the character for which the book is titled, is a boy both confused in search of who he really is yet while being guided by Miss Watson. Miss Watson is trying to get the boy his education, manners, and also at the same time is offering religious guidance as seen in chapter 1. In a scene around the coffee table in the living room, Miss Watson is lecturing on and on about Moses and attempts to teach Huck how to spell. Afterwards we catch him getting fidgety as Miss Watson scolds him for having his feet on the coffee table. All this education i
" (Games: A Key to Understanding Huckleberry Finn, p 71) Tom, on the other hand, doesn't use his imagination for practical matters for the majority of the book. Huck's education comes from books and teaching but also can be seen in his practicality that he lives by experience. Impracticality and the desire to have good old fashioned fun, played major roles in the reason that slavery lived on as long as it did; people like Tom exploited it for their own entertainment. As they crawl past the house, a noise is made that awakes Jim causing Tom and Huck to be caught in a bind as Jim is standing nearby. The reader finds out through many scenes such as in the formation of the robbers and the freeing of Miss Watson's slave, Jim, that Tom may have actually had little or no education at all. The characters are both similar in the imagination in that they both can think up, on the spot, a jumping in and out of character, in Huck's case, or some funny trick to play, mostly seen through Tom. and I didn't ever see how I got to like it so well at the widows, where you had to. According to (---------------------------), the reason for Huck's easily slipping in and out of these disguises is that these disuiges permit "him liberty of behavior that he would not have if he revealed himself. Not only does this finally aid in Twain's depiction of the two opposing, yet best friends, story, but also gives a sense that Twain was actually giving strong social commentary on slavery when he wrote the novel.
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