Huckleberry Finn: The Contrasting Views on Life of Tom and Huck.

Essay by mightymouseHigh School, 10th gradeA, April 2003

download word file, 4 pages 3.7 1 reviews

Tom and Huck differ in their views of life. Briefly summarize each character's view of life and cite references throughout the book to support it. With whom do you agree? Why? What point of view is most dominant in current society? Cite specific examples to prove your contentions.

In this life, people are generalized everyday. They're put into categories; neat little boxes that we can deal with and put into piles accordingly. Without forethought or planning, the characters in Huckleberry Finn are also each put into their own little categories. Huckleberry Finn is one of the first characters we meet. While Mark Twain portrays him as a rather deep and three-dimensional character, Huck can be classified rather easily. He is a realist. Of course, for every main character there has to be something that they oppose; something that is completely unlike them. The reader soon discovers that these opposite qualities in the knifing and mischievous Tom Sawyer allow him to be the perfect foil for Huck.

Huck Finn begins the story at the young age of thirteen. As he is sometimes homeless and without a father, he has not had any sort of formal education and he is generally very naive and ignorant of the world around him. However, his good friend Tom Sawyer seems to be quite knowledgeable and prides himself in the fact that he reads many books and seems to be quite worldly. In fact, when Tom and Huck and a few of the other neighborhood kids get together and form a gang, Tom takes immediate control due to the fact that he has read so many books. When his whimsical actions are questioned by one of the boys, Tom replies saying, "I've seen it in books; and so of course that's what we've got to do...Do...