did tom sawyer try to lead a moral life? if so, how did he?

Answer 1

Tom was always thinking about the people back home and what they would think. As with most of us, Tom received his moral views from the society in which he lived.

In one scene Tom has remorse that he has helped Jim escape. Today we would applaud that action but Tom was concerned about the slave owner and not so much the slave. His society had trained him to think that blacks were property and not really people. He receives his moral thinking through his feelings.

Answer 2

Tom Sawyer was a typical boy of the time. He really didn't know what was moral and what was not. He just lived. IMHO.