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SUMMARY
Tom and Huck start ruminating how to trace Jim. They notice one of the niggers who carries food for somebody in captivity. At first, Huck thinks that the eatables were for a dog. But Tom points out that part of it had watermelon. Huck realizes that since dogs don't eat watermelons, the food must be for a human being. They decide to follow the nigger and see where he goes. The nigger gives the key of the padlock to Uncle Silas. The two boys deduce that the prisoner must be Jim because com sense says that there couldn't be two prisoners on such a small plantation.
Huck's plan is a simple one. He proposes to steal the key from Uncle Silas, open the padlock and run away with Jim on a raft. After putting his plan in front of Tom, Huck wants to know what the latter thinks of it. Tom rebuffs it as something that is "as mild as goose-milk". According to him, there is no fun in a plan unless it involves some action.
That night, the two boys go to inspect the cabin where Jim has been held captive. They observe that a window-hole has only one plank nailed across it. Huck feels that separating the plank would be enough for Jim to escape through the hole. Tom, driven by romantic ideas that are borrowed from books, decides on an idea that is "a little more complicated" and full of "style". He decides to dig a tunnel and help Jim escape through it.
To carry out their plan, the next morning, at day-break, Huck and Tom go to befriend the nigger who serves food to Jim. Through the nigger, the two boys plan to gain access to Jim. They accompany him to Jim's cabin and pretend that they have never seen Jim before. When the rigger is beyond audible range, Tom tells Jim that they are planning to rescue him.
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| The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Chapter 34 |
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
This chapter again brings us face to face with Tom's romanticism and Silly notions vis-a-vis Huck's common sense. Nevertheless Huck holds Tom's intelligence in reverence. He says, "What a head for just a boy to have! If I had Tom Sawyer's head I wouldn't trade it off to be a duke, nor mate of a steamboat, nor clown in a circus, nor nothing I can think of. I went to thinking out a plan, but only just to be doing something; I knowed very well where the right plan was going to come from". Without hearing Tom's plan, Huck assumes that Tom is more capable of striking a better idea. Finally, when Tom vehemently disapproves of plan, the latter makes no bones about the fact that he had expected it. He says, "I never said nothing, because I war't expecting nothing different; but I knowed mighty well that whenever he got his plan ready it wouldn't have none of them objections to it". He has always wanted Toms approval.
Towards the end of Chapter 28, when Huck decides to help the Wilks' sisters, the former begins to develop his self-confidence. He remarks that he has done a "pretty neat" job that is better than Tom Sawyer's "Style". But this is so when Tom Sawyer is nowhere around. As soon as ne latter reappears, Huck's self-confidence gets eroded and he starts looking up to Tom's grandiose notions and flamboyant plans, all over gain. It is noteworthy that Huck's poise and self-assurance exists only so long as Tom is not present to overshadow it.