Compare and contrast - Huckleberry Finn (Huck) and Tom Sawyer

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Compare and contrast - Huckleberry Finn (Huck) and Tom Sawyer.

Huckleberry Finn (Huck) and Tom Sawyer are two of the characters

created by Mark Twain for two of his timeless books. They are as

different as night and day but in some cases as similar as an

alligator and a crocodile. Tom is a born leader and Huck is a

follower. Tom is unaccustomed to the fierceness of life on the streets

and Huck is very familiar with it. However, both Tom and Huck enjoy

playing tricks on people and causing trouble in the town where they

live.

Another way that they are similar is that they both confuse

information. For example, Huck tells Jim that Henry VIII married a new

wife everyday after cutting off the head of the previous one. Huck

also says that each of the wives would tell the king a story and he

collected the stories until he had 1001. There is factual information

in both of those statements. Henry VIII did cut off some of his wives

heads, but only so he could marry another woman in hopes that she

would bear him a son to rule in his place. The part about collecting

stories comes from the legend of how 10001 Arabian Nights was

composed, which states that a wife of an Arab king told him various

stories for 1001 nights. Tom on the other hand confuses information

from books. For example, he convinces his friends to help him raid a

caravan that was transporting jewels through the woods and after it

turns out that they were raiding a Sunday school picnic, Tom tells

Huck that genies transformed the treasure and its guards into

children. This explanation is the merging of the windmill scene in Don

Quixote and Aladdin from 1001 Arabian Nights. The fact that Tom can

turn a Sunday school picnic into a caravan of Arabs prov...

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... signs being able to make up his own mind about things.

That being evident from his blending of the reality he reads about in

books and the real world. Huck furthers his inclination to determine

whether or not he believes someone by spotting almost instantly that

the two men he and Jim pick up are not even remotely related to any

form of royalty as they claim to be. Huck ability to reason seems

almost ingrained in him. It appears that way because he has had very

little schooling and it is doubtful that the schooling he has had

covers practicality.

That is most likely why Huck is found to be a very complex character,

where as Tom is almost transparent. Both are magnificent creations of

Mark Twain's imagination. Their friendship just goes to prove that

opposites do attract one another. And their adventures are what cause

them to be read about to this day.

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