Escaping Slavery and Tom's Obstacles

In these chapters the reader can clearly identify a moral problem, and one very often concurred by humans. Theft. We always have this dilemma present in our lives. When to do it, why, and if it is correct. This is what Twain poses as a main theme in chapter 34. Huck needs to free Jim, but this means "stealing" him. “Didn’t I SAY I was going to help steal the nigger?” (chp 34). So this is a moral problem for them. But it is soon overcome by another obstacle that comes through, which is very interesting and is combined with Tom's quixotic way of thinking. Since he decides that the escape is fairly easy, he complicates it by going the difficult way. Situational irony is present when instead of just lifting the bed to get the chain that cuffs Jim out, he saws it off. This is not expected, and the point of stealing a slave is to do it quickly, but Tom decides to do it his adventure book way.