tom sawyer character analysis essay

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Everything you need for every book you read., huckleberry finn, becky thatcher.

Judge Thatcher

Alfred temple, the welshman, mr. dobbins, mr. walters, dr. robinson.

Tom Sawyer Character Analysis

Overview | Summary  | Analysis | Characters | Themes |  Author

Read a character sketch of Tom Sawyer

Tom is the novel’s protagonist: he appears in almost every scene as the main character. Mark Twain did not specify his age, allowing readers to decide for themselves. However, Tom is likely to be around eleven or twelve years old. If he were younger he would not be so interested in Becky Thatcher. Although he tries to get her attention by turning somersaults, behaving foolishly, and passing love notes to her, he does show a caring attitude towards her that indicates a post-puberty attraction. Examples of that are his taking the blame and the punishment for her, and the way he cares for her when they are lost in the cave.

Tom’s age being unclear is deliberately done by Mark Twain as he is able to portray Tom as a child, and treat the reader to a range of childish games and adventures. At the same time he can also trace a development to maturity and allow him to have the insights and impulses of an adolescent, and, indeed, we see Tom following that path. Tom’s high intelligence and unwavering energy unite the two areas of experience that the novel is exploring, in the one single character

So Tom’s character is not static. There is a strong line of development as he moves from pretending to be Robin Hood, and playing “chiefs and Indians,” giving free reign to his imagination, to actions that require a grown-up degree of integrity. Although completely drawn in by these childish fantasy games he is also capable of facing reality. He shows that when he breaks his solemn oath and reveals Injun Joe’s guilt in murdering Dr Robinson. It takes a great deal of moral courage to perform an act that places him in jeopardy in that way, and it’s hardly a childish action – it’s very much something that would tax the thinking and courage of most adults.

Tom is above everything else, a romantic. Our first impression of him is his charisma and his leadership qualities. He initiates and controls all the activities and the other kids follow his lead. Everyone accepts the name of his ‘gang’ – “Tom Sawyer’s Gang,” and look to him to lead. However, the gang’s activities are always products of Tom’s romantic ideas. He is a well-read child, fascinated with the likes of Robin Hood and other romantic heroes and his choice of activities reflects his desire to adapt his life, and those of his friends, to the lives of those heroes.

But Tom is a complex character. For example, while he eggs Huck Finn on to learn and adopt the ways of robbers and pirates, at the same time he tries to persuade him to go back to the Widow and allow her to civilize him so that he can live in society like everyone else.

From a moral point of view, Tom’s actions are quite confusing. Sometimes he’s admirable, but at other times not so much. He tricks the whole town into believing he’s dead, and he takes great pride in that, but he also easily demonstrates his remorse for doing it. He’s always turning his back on the community by truanting, but at the same time he’s also saving lives. In that sense he’s difficult to categorise. He confuses the reader by sometimes being highly admirable and then at other times quite far from being so. However, the true nature of his good heart shines through. Muff Potter would be dead without him.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is, to some extent, a story about growing up – a kind of rites of passage story. At the beginning of the novel Tom is a naughty child who feels constrained by such things as school and Sunday school, meal times, and good table manners, and he longs for Huck Finn’s freedom and lazy lifestyle. As the novel progresses, however, and Tom’s adventures multiply, critical moments show Tom moving away from his childish concerns and making more mature, more responsible decisions. We see him testifying at Muff Potter’s trial, although he knows the possible consequences of doing so. We see him saving Becky from punishment, and we join him in his heroic navigation out of the cave where he and Becky have been lost. By the end of the novel, Tom is urging Huck to stay at the Widow Douglas’s, coaxing him to wear tight collars, to attend Sunday school, and to observe good table manners. He has emerged from being someone who tries to subvert the adult order of things. He has become an advocate of respectability and responsibility. As a young person heading towards responsible adulthood, he knows he has to sacrifice the freedoms of childhood and, however boring it may be, take on social customs and conventions.

The process is not entirely coherent, however. There are several narrative streams in the novel and the story is told by weaving among them. The reader follows Tom’s general behaviour to its climax in the Jackson’s Island adventure; his struggle with Injun Joe, ending with the discovery of the treasure; and his affair with Becky, which culminates in his acceptance of blame for her ripping the book.

The novel’s episodic structure makes Tom’s character seem inconsistent. There is no linear development in the storyline. It is picaresque in structure, rather like novels of the 18th century, like Tom Jones by Henry Fielding and Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe. Sometimes Tom demonstrates the naïveté of a younger child, with his childish fantasies and superstitions. But then, the romantic interest in Becky and his fascination with Huck’s smoking and drinking make him seem more like a teenager. It is not inconsistent, though: there is one consistent characteristic, which is Tom’s tireless pursuit of adventure, which creates a multitude of dramatic moments that push the novel from episode to episode. He goes through a great deal of experiences, exasperating some of the town’s inhabitants but ends up being the town hero, albeit with his contrasting nature recognised by the town gossips who say that he “would be President yet, if he escaped hanging.”

That’s our Tom Sawyer character analysis. Make sense? Any questions? Let us know in the comments section below!

Tom Sawyer character with Huckleberry Finn in the 1973 movie

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Great synthesis. Haven’t opened that story since high school and you hit it, particularly the lack of consistent character development of Tom.

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• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Literature Notes
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn at a Glance
• Book Summary
• About The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• Notice; Explanatory
• Chapters 5-6
• Chapters 9-10
• Chapters 12-13
• Chapters 15-16
• Chapters 17-18
• Chapters 19-20
• Chapters 21-23
• Chapters 25-26
• Chapters 27-28
• Chapters 29-30
• Chapters 32-33
• Chapters 34-35
• Chapters 36-38
• Chapters 39-40
• Chapters 41-42
• Chapter the Last
• Character Analysis
• Huckleberry Finn
• Character Map
• Mark Twain Biography
• Critical Essays
• Freedom versus Civilization
• Characterization — Pap versus Jim
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• Cite this Literature Note

Character Analysis Tom Sawyer

If  Huck  is the consummate realist of the novel, Tom Sawyer is the representative romantic. When readers are first introduced to Tom, they immediately recognize his role as a leader, or controlling agent, of the situation. The gang is labeled "Tom Sawyer's Gang" because he is the one that controls the activities and pursuits. These activities, however, are always based upon Tom's exaggerated notions of adventure. Basing his experience on the fanciful books he has read, Tom tries to adapt his life and the life of others to that which he has read. The end result is a burlesque of sensibility and emotion, two literary agents that  Twain  despised.

Tom's role as a romantic is extremely important because of its juxtaposition with Huck's literal approach. Although Tom declares that his gang will pursue the exploits of piracy and murder, in reality the gang succeeds in "charging down on hog-drovers and women in carts taking garden stuff to the market." The vision of the young boys disrupting women bound for the market provides much of the harmless humor during the early pages of Huck Finn, and Tom is largely responsible for the slapstick approach. Tom's constant barrage of exaggeration, however, contrasts with Huck's deadpan narration, and Huck can "see no profit" in Tom's methods. Where Huck is practical, Tom is emotional; where Huck is logical, Tom is extravagant. Despite the fact that readers easily recognize Tom's ideas as folly, Huck does not question Tom's authority. On the contrary, Huck believes that Tom's knowledge is above his own, and this includes Tom's attitude toward slavery.

In a sense, Tom represents the civilized society that Huck and Jim leave behind on their flight down the river. When Tom reappears with his fancied notions of escape from the Phelps farm, Jim again becomes a gullible slave and Huck becomes a simple agent to Tom. There is no doubt that Tom is intelligent, and he does state that they will free Jim immediately if there is trouble, but the ensuing ruse suggests that Tom is unable to shake society and the Romantic idealism he possesses, even when Jim's freedom is at stake.

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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

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Tom Sawyer is the novel’s main character. He is a rambunctious boy who loves adventure and “hates work more than he hates anything else” (3). Tom doesn’t appear to live by a code aside from a worship of mischief for its own sake. Twain states that Tom “was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy very well though—and he loathed him” (5). The model boy is Tom’s archenemy.

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