Tom Sawyer


Thomas "Tom" Sawyer is the title character of the Mark Twain novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He appears in three other novels by Twain: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer Abroad, and Tom Sawyer, Detective. He is around 12 to 13 years old.
Sawyer also appears in at least three unfinished Twain works, Huck and Tom Among the Indians, Schoolhouse Hill, and Tom Sawyer's Conspiracy. While all three uncompleted works were posthumously published, only Tom Sawyer's Conspiracy has a complete plot, as Twain abandoned the other two works after finishing only a few chapters. It is set in the 1840s along the Mississippi.

Inspiration

The fictional character's name may have been derived from a jolly and flamboyant chief named Tom Sawyer, with whom Twain was acquainted in San Francisco, California, while Twain was employed as a reporter at The San Francisco Call. Twain used to listen to Sawyer tell stories of his youth: "Sam, he would listen to these pranks of mine with great interest and he'd occasionally take 'em down in his notebook. One day he says to me: 'I am going to put you between the covers of a book some of these days, Tom.' 'Go ahead, Sam,' I said, 'but don't disgrace my name.'" Twain himself said the character sprang from three people, later identified as: John B. Briggs, William Bowen, and himself. However, Twain later changed his story saying Sawyer was fully formed solely from his imagination, but Robert Graysmith said, "The great appropriator liked to pretend his characters sprang fully grown from his fertile mind."

Personality

Tom Sawyer is mischievous and sometimes gets himself and his friends into trouble. He is also superstitious but he actually has a pure heart. He is not really a bad boy and is just capable of generosity and occasionally surprises even himself into bad situations.

Portrayals

Actors who have portrayed Tom Sawyer in films and TV:
NameDateNotes
1917Film, Tom Sawyer
1920Film, Huckleberry Finn
1930, 1931Films, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn
1938Film, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
1938Film, Tom Sawyer, Detective
1944Film, The Adventures of Mark Twain
1955Film, [The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1975 film)|Huckleberry Finn (Climax!)|The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]
1956TV musical, Tom Sawyer
1968TV series, The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
1968Romanian/French/German TV series Les Aventures de Tom Sawyer/''Tom Sawyers und Huckleberry Finns Abenteuer
1973Film, Tom Sawyer
1975Film, Huckleberry Finn
1979TV series, Huckleberry Finn and His Friends
1981TV film, Rascals and Robbers: The Secret Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn
1981Soviet three-episode TV miniseries, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn
1985Film, The Adventures of Mark Twain
1986TV series, American Playhouse Series 5: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn parts I, II, III and IV
1990TV film, Back to Hannibal: The Return of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn
1995Film, Tom and Huck
2000Voice, animated musical film, Tom Sawyer
2003Voice, animated TV series, The Fairly OddParents
2003Film, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
2011, 2012Film, Tom Sawyer), Die Abenteuer des Huck Finn
2014Film, Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn
2015Film, Band of Robbers
20153DS game, Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.
2016TV series, Once Upon a Time''
Seth Green2016TV series, Family Guy