In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer is definitely not presented as a genius, if genius is the word to describe a person who breaks new ground through unique and revolutionary thinking. In fact, it is arguable that in his treatment of Jim, Tom Sawyer is symbolic of the unreconstructed South and a continuation of the racism and systemic oppression of African Americans that Twain found objectionable. Though he knows that Jim is free, Tom finds fun in psychologically and physically torturing Jim and keeping him under his control. Tom tries to convince Huck of the rightness of the actions that keep Jim fettered to the Phelps farm. Tom is also cruel to Aunt Sally, essentially gaslighting her by stealing and then replacing spoons and sheets. To read Tom Sawyer as an amusing and mischievous character is to misread the chapters in which he appears. His attitudes and outlook are things that Huck is in the process of unlearning.
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