List of characters in the Tom Sawyer series
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This is a list of characters from Mark Twain's series of books featuring the fictional character Tom Sawyer:
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)
- Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894)
- Tom Sawyer, Detective (1896)
Contents |
Widow Douglas
Widow Douglas' life is saved by Huckleberry Finn after he followed Injun Joe and a confederate of his and realised they were plotting to murder her. Out of her gratitude, she takes Huck into her home, but he has trouble adjusting to "civilised" life and soon runs away. However, at the end of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck is persuaded by Tom Sawyer to return.
Huck Finn
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 for saving her life. In the book's sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck is kidnapped by his father, but soon manages to escape; the rest of the book tells of his search for a way to avoid his father until the climax.
Joe Harper
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
Injun Joe is a half Indian half white man who went mad from years of social exclusion due to his race, and now hates virtualy 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.
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 who lived in the Hannibal Missouiri area dying in 1923 at the age 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.
Tom Sawyer
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 around the age of ten. 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.
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
Judge Thatcher is a minor character in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He is also Rebecca Thatcher's father.
Becky Thatcher
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 blonde hair that is always in two braids. When Tom and Becky first have an encounter, she gives him a pansy to show her love.
External links
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Full text in easy-to-read HTML format
- Tom Sawyer Abroad - Full text
- Tom Sawyer, Detective - Full text
- Information about Huck Finn
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Full text in easy-to-read HTML format.
- Text of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer at American Literature