Tom is the main protagonist in Mark Twain's novel 'Tom Sawyer' as the name would suggest. An interesting thing about Tom is that his age is never specified, so each reader can have their own interpretation. Tom is very bright, energetic, and active, but also can be quite immature at times, while very mature at others especially towards the end of the novel. If you think of the novel as a tale of Tom's adventure, this can seem quite contradictory, so it is important to instead think of the novel as a tale of growth and maturing, a character arc that is perfectly demonstrated by Tom's behavior throughout the novel.