The Characters of Tom Sawyer

Mark Twain did a great job of bringing the characters of Tom Sawyer to life. Twain used vivid descriptions and deep personalities to make his stories interesting.

The most prominent character in this story is Tom Sawyer. Tom Sawyer is a whole and true miscreant. Tom lives with his aunt, Polly, and cousin, Sid. He is a very smart boy, but he doesn’t care about learning or education in general. You can tell that he is very smart because he was able to memorize every line of the book that he holds so dearly to his heart, Robin Hood. Yet at the same time, he is not able to memorize a few very simple lines of the bible for Sunday school. Even though it may appear that Tom is a very simple character, he actually has a lot of depth. He believes in all sorts of crazy rituals like swinging dead cats while saying an incantation to get rid of warts or going out into the forest and finding a stump full of spunk-water and saying an incantation to get rid of warts. Tom is not a good boy when he is told to be a good boy; but when it really comes down to it, he always makes the right choice. An example is he would skip school some days because he was expected to go to school and be the best and smartest boy he could be, but he wanted to be the opposite of what everyone else wants him to be. Yet when Tom and Huck witnessed the murder of the town doctor and a grave robbing, Tom feels compassion and sorrow for the man that was wrongfully blamed for the crime. He even brings the man, Potter, comforts while Potter is in jail. Tom might have been doing this just to ease his own conscience, but at least he went and helped the innocent man out. Usually though, Tom’s motivation for doing what he does is just to have fun and do the opposite of what everyone expects from him. He will skip school to go swimming because swimming is one of the enjoyments in Tom’s life, and because he wants to do the opposite of what all the adults and good kids think he should do, which is being a good boy and going to school. Tom is an overall interesting character, and his personality just adds to how interesting he is. So far in the story, I have seen Tom’s personality as fun, boisterous, argumentative, and in-control. This personality makes him really come to life, and seem so realistic.

Another character in the story that really comes to life is Huckleberry Finn. Huckleberry Finn is the town’s child pariah. He is the son of the town’s drunk, so he has to take care of himself. Also because of his father, he has to wear clothes that don’t fit and are in terrible condition, sleep wherever he can find a place to sleep, and can miss school and church whenever he feels like it. All of the other boys envy his life and his choices, but I feel that Huck doesn’t actually enjoy his circumstances. When Mark Twain writes about Huckleberry from Tom’s point of view, Tom yearns to have a life like Huck’s; yet I feel it must be hard for Huck to live out on his own with no one ever there to take care of him. Huck though believes in many of the same crazy things that Tom believes in. He thinks that dead cats and incantations can heal warts and sealing secrets with blood. Huckleberry’s motivations from my point of view are just to have fun. He goes swimming when he wants to go swimming and he doesn’t go to school because he wants to do other things that are more fun at the moment. He doesn’t really consider the fact that he should be going to school and church for the long term future, instead he only thinks about doing fun things now. I think that Huck is a fun person, yet he can become overly scared and dramatic. He can have fun with Tom and be one of the boys; but after Tom and Huck witnessed the murder of the town doctor, Huck became scared and irrational. He started to lose his cool in a time of panic. Yet overall Huckleberry is a very fun and kind person who is just down on his luck and has a hard time catching breaks.

Another character in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is Tom’s aunt, Polly. Aunt Polly is a kind woman who cares for Tom and Tom’s cousins Sid and Mary. Aunt Polly is one of the nicest old ladies you could meet, and she takes as good of care of Tom as possible. She doesn’t enjoy punishing Tom for his terrible behavior, but sometimes Tom just has to be punished because he is such a bad child like all the times that he skips school to go swimming. She is very formal and established, for example she has a pair of glasses that she only wears for style and not for looking through. She overlooks Tom’s bad behavior when it is lesser things like stealing sugar during breakfast because she cares for him so much. She believes that is better to let boys be boys and let them get their badness out than punish them and force them to go to school because she is very lenient with Tom and Sid. I believe that Aunt Polly is motivated by her love for Tom and Sid, and that is why she takes such good care of the two no matter what they put her through. Her personality is kind, caring, and sweet; that is why she is the perfect guardian for Tom, she balances him out.

Yet another character is Tom’s cousin Sid. Sid is a good boy compared to Tom. He is not the town’s perfect boy, but he is a good boy. Sid is also raised by Aunt Polly, yet he doesn’t disobey her. Sid often spies on Tom trying to get Tom in trouble in a brotherly way. I feel that Sid does his best and tries his best, and Mark Twain tries to use Sid as a reference point of how bad Tom really is. Sid is often “punished” by Tom for having told on Tom or getting Tom in trouble, but you can definitely sense a brotherly relationship between the two. I think that Sid is motivated to get Tom in trouble because he is jealous of Tom being able to go break the rules with his Aunt barely caring at all. Also he has a brotherly love of Tom because of all the experiences that they have had together. Sid has a personality that is a mix of being a good, studious kid and being a boy like Tom who does whatever they want. Sid definitely cares about being a good boy, but he also has learned badly from Tom and has some rebelliousness in him. Sid believes that Tom shouldn’t be the only boy in the family that is well-known, whether that is good or bad.

The final character that I will talk about is Muff Potter. Muff Potter was the drunk that went grave robbing with Injun Joe and the Dr. Robinson, and was wrongfully blamed by Injun Joe for the murder of Dr. Robinson. Even though he is a drunk, I believe that Muff Potter isn’t a bad man; he has just made bad choices. Even after he thought he had murdered Dr. Robinson, he didn’t run away; instead he stayed to face the consequences of what he had done. Muff Potter only went out grave robbing because he was drunk and for the money, so I think that his motivations are quite simply to get money. His personality is very drear, and he seems kind of uneducated because he was unable to figure out that he was not the one that murdered Dr. Robinson. I think he believes that justice should always be served and that is why he stayed in own even after the whole police force was sent after him.