Tom's best friend aside from Huck. He runs away with them to the island after Tom finds him upset one day at having been wrongfully accused by his mother of having stolen cream. As a conventional boy—the first one to miss home—Joe serves as a foil to the self-sufficient Huck.
Joe Harper Quotes in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The The Adventures of Tom Sawyer quotes below are all either spoken by Joe Harper or refer to Joe Harper. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 13
Quotes
They said their prayers inwardly, and lying down, since there was nobody there with authority to make them kneel and recite aloud; in truth they had a mind not to say them at all, but they were afraid to proceed to such lengths as that, lest they might call down a sudden and special thunderbolt from Heaven. Then at once they reached and hovered upon the imminent verge of sleep—but an intruder came, now, that would not "down." It was conscience. They began to feel a vague fear that they had been wrong to run away; and next they thought of the stolen meat, and then the real torture came.
Related Characters:
Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Joe Harper
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16
Quotes
Joe's pipe dropped from his nerveless fingers. Tom's followed. Both fountains were going furiously and both pumps bailing with might and main. Joe said feebly:
I've lost my knife. I reckon I better go and find it.
Tom said, with quivering lip and halting utterance:
I'll help you. You go over that way and I'll hunt around by the spring. No, you needn't come Huck—we can find it.
I've lost my knife. I reckon I better go and find it.
Tom said, with quivering lip and halting utterance:
I'll help you. You go over that way and I'll hunt around by the spring. No, you needn't come Huck—we can find it.
Related Characters:
Tom Sawyer (speaker), Joe Harper (speaker), Huckleberry Finn
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Adventures of Tom Sawyer LitChart as a printable PDF.
Joe Harper Character Timeline in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The timeline below shows where the character Joe Harper appears in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 7
Bored, Tom releases a tick he has captured on his desk. He lets Joe Harper, seated next to him, play along in a game with the tick. Tom can't...
(full context)
Chapter 8
When Joe Harper arrives, Tom declares the woods to be "Sherwood Forrest." They play at sword-fighting, then...
(full context)
Chapter 13
Feeling misunderstood, Tom begins to cry. Joe Harper comes along, upset because his mother accused him of stealing cream. Tom convinces Joe...
(full context)
Chapter 14
Joe and Huck wake, feeling wonderful. No one cares that the raft has drifted away.
(full context)
Chapter 15
...reach the island. After napping on the shore, he heads to camp at dawn, where Joe and Huck are arguing over whether he deserted them. They celebrate Tom's embellished stories of...
(full context)
Chapter 16
Tom, Huck, and Joe fill their days with all the fun they can imagine: hunting for turtle eggs to...
(full context)
...to stay on the island because he has a secret he can't yet share. When Joe insists on leaving, Tom taunts him about missing his mother, but Joe sets off, and...
(full context)
Chapter 17
In St. Petersburg, the townspeople prepare for the funeral to mourn Tom, Joe, and Huck. Their schoolmates tell fond stories about the boys, each one of them trying...
(full context)
Chapter 19
...Polly, who reveals that she has learned from Mrs. Harper that Tom's dream wasn't real. Joe had told his mother a more complete account of the boys' time away, including Tom's...
(full context)
Chapter 33
...boatloads of men immediately head to the cave's entrance. Removing its barrier, they find Injun Joe's dead body. Tom realizes he's relieved to no longer fear being murdered.
(full context)
...the outlet he found. He brags that they'll form a new band of robbers with Joe Harper and Ben Rogers called "Tom Sawyer's Gang", and hide women they're holding for ransom...
(full context)
