In terms of the novel's structure, some critics have dismissed it as being simply a series of episodes. And it is true that there are many seemingly extraneous scenes; nevertheless, each scene contributes to building a broad picture of the lives of these youths. In the broadest sense, the novel concentrates basically on Tom's--and to a lesser degree, Huck's--development from carefree childish behavior to one that is filled with mature responsibility. Furthermore, the primary adventure--which features the murder the boys witness and its aftermath--provides a single event that begins in the graveyard and runs throughout the plot of lesser adventures. The lesser adventures are more episodic, which is typically Twain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for example, is a series of episodes connected by the adventure to free the slave Jim.
Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, a dusty, quiet town built on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River about eighty miles north of St. Louis. This is the town--renamed St. Petersburg in the novel--that Tom and Huck and the other characters inhabit. The Jackson's Island of Tom Sawyer (which also appears in Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) is an actual island located just south of the town, close to the Illinois side of the river. The cave that Injun Joe inhabited still exists, as do the houses that the Widow Douglas and Aunt Polly supposedly inhabited. Twain's Hannibal was surrounded by large forests which Twain himself knew as a child and in which his characters Tom Sawyer and Joe Harper often play "Indians and Chiefs." The steamboats that passed daily were the fascination of the town, and Tom and Huck would watch their comings and goings from the bluff overlooking the Mississippi.
