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

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... ... 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.