Chapter 34 Tom And Huck example essay topic

Chapter 33 Huck meets Tom Sawyer on the road and stops his carriage. Tom is frightened and thinks he is seeing a ghost, but Huck reassures him and they settle down. Huck then tells Tom what has happened at the Phelps's and Tom thinks about what they should do. He then tells Huck to return to the farm with his suitcase while he returns to the town and starts the trip over.

Huck gets back and soon thereafter Tom arrives. The family is excited because they do not get very many visitors so they make Tom welcome. Tom makes up a whole story about his hometown and then impudently kisses Aunt Sally right on the mouth. She is so shocked that she nearly hits him over the head with her spinning stick until Tom tells her that he is Sid Sawyer. Silas then explains that Jim revealed to him what a scandal the Royal Nonesuch really was.

Silas says that he told the rest of the town, and he figures they will ride the two cheats out of town that night. Huck and Tom climb out of their windows in a last minute attempt to warn the Duke and King, but they are too late. They see the two men being paraded through the street all covered in tar and feathers. Huck remarks that human beings can be awfully cruel to one another. Chapter 34 Tom and Huck think about ways to break Jim out of his prison. Huck plans to get the raft, steal the key to the padlock, unlock the door and then float down the river some more.

Tom tells him that plan is too simple and would work too well. Tom's plan is much more elaborate and stylish, and takes a great deal longer to implement. The boys go to the hut where Jim is being kept and search around. Finally Tom decides that the best way, or at least the way that will take the longest, is to dig a hole for Jim to climb out of. The next day he and Huck follow the black man who is delivering Jim's food.

Jim recognizes them and calls them by name, but both boys pretend not to have heard anything. When he has a chance, Tom tells Jim that they are going to dig him out. Jim is so happy he grabs Tom's hand and shakes it. Chapter 35 Tom brainstorms as many ideas as possible in order to make Jim into a real prisoner before his daring escape. He decides that they will have to saw off the leg of Jim's bed in order to get the chain free, send Jim a knotted ladder made of sheets, give Jim a shirt to keep a journal on, and get Jim some tin plates to write messages on and throw them out the window. To top it all off, Tom tells Huck that they will use case-knives to dig Jim out, rather than picks and shovels.

Analysis These chapters deal with several issues mentioned earlier in the novel, but in a much more personal and powerful manner. Huck is forced to finally decide between right and wrong concerning slavery, and as such must solidify his own morality. The most powerful scene by far is when Huck is deciding whether to help Jim or tell Miss Watson where her slave has ended up. He finishes by deciding to follow his conscience and free Jim, even if that means that he will go to hell. The fact that Huck is willing to sacrifice his own soul to hell for Jim's sake shows the tremendous amount of personal growth which Huck has undergone. In the earlier chapters Huck would never have considered making such a sacrifice.

This scene indicates how his relationship with Jim has changed over the course of the journey downriver, from companion to respected friend to being the only family that Huck will acknowledge. Huck makes his decision after remembering all the times that Jim protected him and cared for him, something which no one else has ever done for Huck. There is therefore bitter irony in the story about the steamship cylinder blowing up. Huck concocts the tale as an excuse for arriving in town so much later than expected. When asked if anyone was hurt, he replies 'No'm, killed a nigger. ' Aunt Polly is relieved to hear that.

By this point in the novel the reader is not willing forgive Aunt Polly for her remark anymore. Whereas in the beginning of the book such an attitude could be attributed to the culture, after being introduced to Jim the reader is unable to maintain that distance. Thus the reader wonders what Huck is thinking when he makes that comment, and whether he realizes how hypocritical he sounds. This part of the novel also reintroduces Twain's writing in a style more similar to that of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Tom's return to the plot means that everything will go crazy again and logical thinking will be thrown to the wind. Huck quickly takes a backseat role when compared to Tom's unlimited creativity. The fact that Tom is willing to steal a slave comes as a surprise to Huck. And well it should, considering how long Huck took to decide that he would risk hell for his friend. Thus Huck questions what Tom's motives are, and finally writes them off to Tom's juvenile love of adventure. The reader needs to recognize that this a false assumption.

Tom has never committed a real crime with serious moral repercussions and is unlikely to do so now. Thus, the only reason he would be willing to steal Jim out of slavery is if he knows something Huck does not. As we find out in the later chapters, Jim is already free and therefore Tom can justify the entire escapade from a moral standpoint. Huck on the other hand acts without this knowledge, and therefore his decision is much more serious in its implications.