List of characters in the Tom Sawyer series
Mark Twain's series of books featuring the
fictional character Tom Sawyer include:
#
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (
1876) #
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (
1885)#
Tom Sawyer Abroad (
1894)#
Tom Sawyer, Detective (
1896)
Widow Douglas' life is saved by Huckleberry Finn after he followed Injun Joe and a confederate of his and realized they were plotting to disfigure her. Out of her gratitude, she takes Huck into her home, but he has trouble adjusting to "civilized" life and soon runs away. However, at the end of
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck is persuaded by Tom Sawyer to return.
Huckleberry Finn is the
protagonist of
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck also appears in
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
The main theme of this book, according to author Mark Twain, is sound mind versus distorted
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, a sequel to "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", the widow attempts to "sivilise" the newly-rich Huck. Huck is kidnapped by his father, but manages to escape, where he meets Jim, an escaped
slave of Widow Douglas'. They take a raft down the
Mississippi River in the hope of reaching the
free states.
Joseph (Joe) Harper is Tom Sawyer's best friend in
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and joins Tom on some of his adventures.
Injun Joe is a half Indian half white man who went mad from years of social exclusion due to his race, and now hates virtually everyone. He was
horsewhipped by Judge Douglas for
vagrancy, and this led to a lifelong burning for revenge against the Judge, and later on, his widow. Injun Joe also uncovered
loot in a
haunted house and buried it in a
cave; however, around the same time, Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher were trapped in the cave and soon rescued, leading to the entrance to the cave being sealed and Injun Joe being trapped inside, leading to his demise.
Injun Joe had, by the time of his death, made several anti-social depredations. 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 others that are not clarified; the fact that there is a "Number Two" home for Injun Joe and that he keeps it secret hints that he also a theif and/or a conspirator.
The story is memorialized by a tame version of Injun Joe's Cave on Tom Sawyer Island at
Disneyland.
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" the story goes.
Douglas, while never identified by Mark Twain, must have been a fright to all of the towns' 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 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.
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, numskulls, 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." [
1]
Tom's goody-goody brother.
Tom Sawyer is the protagonist of
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and a character in
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Tom Sawyer is a playful boy. He is about thirteen. His best friends include Joe Harper and Huckleberry Finn. In
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, it is apparent that Tom is
infatuated with Rebecca Thatcher. He has one brother, Sidney and his aunt is known as Aunt Polly. As far as we can tell from the book, he is an orphan.
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.
Judge Thatcher is a minor character in
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He is also Becky (Rebecca) Thatcher's father.
She is the daughter of Judge Thatcher, and she is known for the mutual infatuation she and Tom Sawyer shared in
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. She has long
blond hair that is always in two braids. When Tom and Becky first have an encounter, she gives him a
pansy to show her love.
She is Tom's aunt, she cares for Tom as a mother should. She loves him throughout the story, and yet she doesn't show it very well. Her influence on Tom is not great but she does try hard to get Tom into shape. When she is first seen in the book, she gives him a slap for eating jam without permission but still believes she is too soft-hearted to give him effective discipline. She exemplifies many parents of the time.
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Full text in easy-to-read HTML format
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Tom Sawyer Abroad - Full text
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Tom Sawyer, Detective - Full text
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Information about Huck Finn*
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Full text in easy-to-read HTML format.
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Text of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer at American Literature
