Tom Sawyer
Huck's admired friend, who treats Jim's escape as an opportunity to stage a literary adventure.
He wants an escape worth telling, with himself as its ingenious director.
The book
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeTom's reading gives him a vocabulary of heroic behavior and a ready claim to authority. At the Phelps farm, that authority allows him to make other people work and suffer for the sake of a satisfying performance.
How the book draws them
- Making an entranceIn Chapter XXXIII, Tom invents an identity and prolongs Aunt Sally's confusion before claiming to be Sid. His enjoyment depends on controlling what the audience knows.
- Rejecting the workable planIn Chapter XXXIV, he agrees that Huck's proposal would free Jim, then dismisses it as too simple. The objection makes spectacle more important than the immediate purpose of escape.
- Books as unquestionable rulesIn Chapter XXXV, Tom demands a rope ladder that Jim cannot use. He treats literary precedent as an obligation even when Huck points out the mismatch with the actual cabin.
- An adventure assigned to someone elseIn Chapter XXXVIII, Tom requires inscriptions, a coat of arms and prison pets. Jim must do the labor, while Tom interprets objections as failures to appreciate the opportunity.
- Pleased by his own woundIn Chapter XL, Tom is delighted to have been shot in the leg and wants to continue. Huck and Jim insist on medical help, bringing practical care back into an episode Tom regards as a triumph.
- The knowledge he has withheldIn Chapter XLII, Tom admits that Jim was freed in Miss Watson's will. His earlier willingness to help has not required the moral risk Huck imagined; Tom wanted the adventure.
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