is naturally considerate, advising his friend against tying Jim up or playing tricks on him. Tom's tendency toward hypocrisy also contrasts sharply with Huck's sincerity, discussed in the critical reading of the last chapter. Thus, the two characters of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are foils to each other: certain traits of one character serve to highlight the contrasting traits of the other. Nonetheless, though the important contrasting traits of the two characters make them foils, they still share some traits in common. These shared traits are enough to preserve the friendship between Tom and Huckleberry throughout the novel. Most importantly, the two characters share a kind of "boyishness"-- that is, the characteristic embodied in the phrase, "boys will be boys," and expounded upon in the first novel, Tom Sawyer. In the Preface to that book, the author wrote that he hoped the novel would rekindle its readers' memories of their own childhood impishness, "of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in." That theme is continued as something of a motif, a topic of interest, in Huckleberry Finn. Both Huck and Tom, in their own ways, delight in the dirty language and pranks that adults shun. On the whole, though, Huck's separation from the world of adults and their "civilization" is more complete, and more serious. Still, throughout the novel, Huck maintains some admiration for Tom's romantic adventures, and often wonders what he would do in certain situations. Thus, Huck's character has some connection to Tom's less desirable traits....
