Huck: Chapters 37-End

     Dear Lord! Tom and his romanticized ideas!  I wanted to enter that story and slap him for being so selfish.  He knew!  He knew all along that Jim was a free man.  And yet he went through all this brainstorming and led both Huck and Jim through all that trouble just because he "wanted the adventure of it" (278).
     Both Tom and Huck love adventure; it is obvious.  Huck lived it mostly because he was on his own for most of his life before Miss Watson took him in.  Tom imagined it.  Huck truly portrays the image of realism in that he plans things out simple and lies realistically.  Huck is also a thinker.  He has arguments with himself thinking logically--poorly--and even at times thinking critically.  (For example the time when Huck was considering whether to free Jim.)  He's incredibly smart too (faking his own death creatively) and can lie on the spot.  But when compared to Tom, Huck is too...simple.
     Tom is the complete opposite.  Because he is a bit younger than Huck, his imagination is strong and highly used.  Tom fantasizes life; his plans are way out there.  Huck has a plan, but Tom's plan is much more complex.  As Huck is becoming more mature, Tom annoyingly holds on to Romanticism. 
     For example:
     "You don't want spring water; you want to water it with your tears" (264).
     "...but Tom was the gladdest of all, because he had a bullet in the calf of his leg" (270).
     He was happy he got shot?!  Jim and Huck had to take him to a doctor--they are thinking realistically--and Tom is all like, "Don't stop, now; don't fool around here, and the evasion booming along so handsome; man the sweeps, and set her loose!  Boys, we done it elegant!--' deed we did" (270).  This kid is so blinded by his romanticized ideas that he doesn't think of others or himself, of the danger or the risk.  In the beginning, it seemed that Tom was smarter than Huck because of his education.  But in life, Huck is wiser and is more careful than Tom.  Huck sees life as it is while Tom brings his ideas from the adventure books he's read.
     In the end, I respected the way Twain ended the novel: Jim found his freedom.  Realistically, he would have been sent back to slavery, but like Tom, Twain saw other options...better options.