List of characters in the Tom Sawyer series

Mark Twain's series of books featuring the fictional characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn include:

# "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876)
# "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1885)
# "Tom Sawyer Abroad" (1894)
# "Tom Sawyer, Detective" (1896)

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn also appears in at least three unfinished Twain works, "Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians" (the original "Huckleberry Finn"), "Schoolhouse Hill" (a version of "The Mysterious Stranger") and "Tom Sawyer's Conspiracy" (a sequel to "Tom Sawyer, Detective"). While all three uncompleted works had been posthumously published, only "Tom Sawyer's Conspiracy" boasts a complete plot and nearly complete story. Twain abandoned the other two works after only finishing a few chapters.

=Thomas Sawyer=

Tom Sawyer is the protagonist of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and a character in "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". Tom Sawyer (fictional character 'born' around 1833) is the main character of the Mark Twain novel "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876). He appears in three other novels by Twain: "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1884), "Tom Sawyer Abroad" (1894), and "Tom Sawyer, Detective" (1896).

Sawyer also appears in at least three unfinished Twain works, "Huck and Tom Among the Indians", "Schoolhouse Hill", and "Tom Sawyer's Conspiracy". While all three uncompleted works were posthumously published, only "Tom Sawyer's Conspiracy" boasts a complete plot, as Twain abandoned the other two works after only finishing a few chapters.

The fictional character's name may have derived from a real life Tom Sawyer with whom Twain was acquainted in San Francisco, California while Twain was employed as a reporter at the San Francisco Call. [ [http://www.sfmuseum.net/hist10/sawyer.html Biography of Tom Sawyer] ] The character himself is an amalgam of several boys Twain knew while growing up. [Twain, M., Introduction; "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", 1876]

Tom Sawyer is a cunning, playful boy. He is around twelve years old. His best friends include Joe Harper and Huckleberry Finn. In "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", it is apparent that Tom is infatuated with Rebecca (alias Becky) Thatcher. He has a half-brother, Sid, a cousin, Mary, and his aunt is known as Aunt Polly, all of whom he lives with. Tom is Aunt Polly's dead sisters' son. It is unknown how Tom's mother died.

Among the adventures Tom gets himself into are revealing Injun Joe's crime, getting trapped in a cave with Becky Thatcher, and discovering Injun Joe's treasure.

Mary

Tom's older cousin, and Aunt Polly's daughter. She is said to be an excellent student, having won the Bible twice given in Sunday School when a student memorizes 2,000 verses.

Huckleberry Finn

Huckleberry Finn is the protagonist and narrator of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. " He is 12 or 13 years old at the time of the events in "Tom Sawyer" and would be a year older at the time of the major events of the book "Huckleberry Finn". Huck also appears in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and narrates "Tom Sawyer, Detective" and "Tom Sawyer Abroad", as well as the unfinished "Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians" and "Tom Sawyer's Conspiracy". He is also Tom Sawyer's closest friend. Their friendship is partially rooted in Sawyer's emulation of Huck's freedom and ability to do what he wants, when he wants. In one moment in the novel, he openly brags to his teacher that he was late for school because he stopped to talk with Huck Finn, something for which he knew he would (and did) receive a whipping. Nonetheless, Tom remains a devoted friend to Huck in both the novels they appear in. For his part, Huck recognizes Sawyer's emulation of him and his lifestyle, however he tends to view Sawyer as his closest (and perhaps only real) friend.

The main theme of this book, according to author Mark Twain, is the conflict between consciousness and conscience. Huck is the son of a vagrant drunkard. He enjoys lazing about and joining Tom Sawyer in adventures. At the end of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", Huck is adopted by the Widow Douglas in return for saving her life. In "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," in some respects a sequel to "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", the widow attempts to "civilize" the newly rich Huck. Huck is kidnapped by his father but manages to fake his own death and escape to Jackson's Island, where he coincidentally meets up with Jim, a slave of the Widow Douglas's sister, Miss Watson. Jim is running for freedom because he has found out that Miss Watson plans to "sell him South" for eight hundred dollars. The two take a raft down the Mississippi River in the hope of finding freedom from slavery for Jim and freedom from his father and controlling foster parent for Huck.

The character of Huck Finn was based on Tom Blankenship, the real-life son of a drunkard who lived in a "ramshackle" house near the Mississippi River behind the house where the author grew up in Hannibal, Missouri. [(Washington, D.C.) Express, June 6, 2007]

Joe Harper

Joseph (Joe) Harper is Tom Sawyer's friend in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and joins Tom on some of his adventures. He becomes a pirate with Tom and Huck, when they ran away from home to Jacksons Island. He has two sisters, Susie and Faith Harper. His mother is Sereny Harper.

Injun Joe

Injun Joe is a half Native American, half white man - "Injun" (a variant of "Indian") being a pejorative term in general and clearly intended as such in the specific social circumstances described for this character. He was horsewhipped by Mr. Douglas, a police officer, for vagrancy, and this led to a lifelong burning for revenge against the officer, and later on, his widow. Injun Joe uncovers loot in a haunted house and buries it in a cave; however, around the same time, Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher are trapped in the cave but soon rescued, leading the entrance to the cave being sealed and Injun Joe being trapped inside, where he dies. Injun Joe had, by the time of his death, planned or carried out several crimes. The first that Tom Sawyer witnessed was the murder of Dr. Robinson and the framing of Muff Potter. Following this, Huck Finn overhears Injun Joe plotting the mutilation of Widow Douglas. Huck sounds the alarm, but Injun Joe escapes. There is evidence of other crimes that is not clarified; the fact that there is a "Number Two" home for Injun Joe and that he keeps it secret hints that he is also a thief and/or a conspirator.

The story was memorialized by a tame version of Injun Joe's Cave on Tom Sawyer Island at Disneyland until 2007, when the attraction was replaced with Dead Man's Grotto.

It can be presumed that Injun Joe was based on Joe Douglas, a 1/2 Black, 1/2 Osage Indian who lived in the Hannibal, Missouri area, dying in 1923 at the age of 102 "from ptomaine poisoning from pickled pig's feet," or so the story goes.

Douglas, while never identified by Mark Twain, must have been a fright to all of the town's children who had been reared on horror stories of Indian brutality and slave uprisings, for not only was Douglas half Indian and half Black but he was also a giant, his face scarred by smallpox, and he wore a red wig covering a bald head.

But the truth is that he was a property owner who was neither dishonorable nor murderous. He lived a long life and died respectably.

Muff Potter

Muff Potter is featured in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." He is falsely accused of murdering Dr. Robinson, while really it is Injun Joe's doing. In the end, he is cleared of the crime. He is a close friend of Tom's. He is a drunk fisherman who help mend the children's kites and helps them fish. He loves children, but is at times extremely intoxicated.

Judge Thatcher

Judge Thatcher is a minor character in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". He is also Becky (Rebecca) Thatcher's father. He was a close friend of Tom Sawyer.

Rebecca "Becky" Thatcher

The daughter of Judge Thatcher, she is known for her mutual infatuation with Tom Sawyer in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer". She has long yellow hair always worn in braids. She wins Tom's love from the first moment he sees her. Even after weeks trying to win the affection of a girl named Amy Lawrence, Becky makes him forget all about her. When Tom and Becky first have an encounter, she gives him a pansy to show her love. Tom reveals himself to be a true romantic at heart when he lays himself under Becky's window and creates a wistful "death". Becky Thatcher soon becomes "engaged" to Tom Sawyer, and Tom gives her a brass andiron knob as a sign of commitment. However, she is angered to learn that Tom was "engaged" to Amy before her and returns the knob, but she forgives Tom after he nobly takes a whipping from the schoolmaster for Becky's crime of looking at the headmaster's forbidden book.

Widow Douglas

Widow Douglas's life is saved by Huckleberry Finn after he follows Injun Joe and a confederate of his and discovers their plot to disfigure her. Out of gratitude, she takes Huck into her home, but he has trouble adjusting to "sivilized" (as he calls it) life and soon runs away. At the end of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", Tom persuades Huck to return.

Jim

Jim flees slavery with Huck, who flees his drunkard father. Of Jim, Russell Baker wrote::"The people whom Huck and Jim encounter on the Mississippi are drunkards, murderers, bullies, swindlers, lynchers, thieves, liars, mows, frauds, child abusers, numbskulls, hypocrites, windbags and traders in human flesh. All are white. The one man of honor in this phantasmagoria is 'Nigger Jim,' as Twain called him to emphasize the irony of a society in which the only true gentleman was held beneath contempt." [ [http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/hentoff112999.asp Expelling 'Huck Finn'] ]

However, Baker merely perpetuates a vulgar myth. Jim is never referred to specifically as "Nigger Jim" anywhere in the book. Huck, the narrator, does often refer to him as a "nigger" - as is true for all black people he meets - but the phrase "Nigger Jim" never appears.

Mr. Walters

Mr. Walters is the hated superintendent at Tom's Sunday school. He is easily angered and is described as "short tempered."

Rev. Mr. Sprague

The pastor at church.

References

External links

* [http://mark-twain.classic-literature.co.uk/the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer/ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer] - Full text in easy-to-read HTML format
* [http://mark-twain.classic-literature.co.uk/tom-sawyer-abroad/ Tom Sawyer Abroad] - Full text
* [http://mark-twain.classic-literature.co.uk/tom-sawyer-detective/ Tom Sawyer, Detective] - Full text
* [http://www.huck-finn.com Information about Huck Finn]