The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain - Essay Example

? College The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain The Adventures of Tom Sawyer basically is based on the growing up of the author in Hannibal around 1840s. This paper sets out to describe four theses regarding the book with in sought evidence. Thesis 1 talks about Tom being in the age bracket of 12 and 13 years. Tom’s attitude and perspective on life are discussed in thesis 2 as having made him the hero he is in American literature. Finally the paper presents a negative attitude that comes out from the book regarding several characters: child like revenge. As a matter of fact, the paper gives a verdict regarding the author’s two related books: The adventures of Tom Sawyer and The adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Thesis 1: Tom Sawyer is between 12 and 13 years This is evident from the events that transpire throughout the book. It is clear for the reader to discern that Tom is a typical young boy struggling with teenage crisis. The novel commences with Tom's Aunt Polly looking for Tom. Polly calls Tom in vain. It transpires that Tom had hid himself from the fear of his aunt realizing a jar of blueberry jam he was eating. Polly was almost hitting him until Tom diverted her by pretending that something was coming from behind her before escaping from her wrath (Adams, 1997). The novel goes on to tell how Tom has gained experience on tricking her aunty to safety whenever she is aggrieved. It is also at this juncture were the death of Tom’s mother is presented as the reason why Tom is residing with the Aunt Polly. Aunt Polly is presented as having stayed with Tom long enough to understand him well. Polly once felt that Tom was going to miss out school a certain Friday sundown and he did. She assumed that Tom had gone swimming in the water the same day, but she could not get evidence to prove the case. It was until later when Sidney unearthed that Tom’s shirt was sewn with a rare black thread that made them prove that he must have been swimming. Aunt Polly assigns a punishment to Tom to whitewash the front hedge; it is quite huge for an individual to perform the task. Therefore, Tom invites Jim a slave he knows. He convinces him that the undertaking is fun filled compared to the boring water harvesting. Jim did not fall for the trap and left in a hush. Since tom’s belongings didn’t amount to convince other kids to accompany him in his punishment. He comes up with another strategy of luring other kids that they pay him in exchange of getting a chance to participate in whitewashing. Ben Rogers is the first victim who is enticed by the undertaking and the rest follow. The fence is cleared in record time and bears three coats of paint at the end of the exercise . Thesis 2: Tom’s attitude and perspectives on life make him an outstanding icon in American literature Tom’s extra ordinary sense is depicted in the book; for instance, the third chapter starts with Tom informing Polly that the fence job is accomplished (Sears, 1999). This is unbelievable for Aunt Polly, and she proceeds outside to have a glance at the job. She is tremendously amazed that the painting is done, and even more astounded that is has so several coats on it. She is so stunned that she offers Tom the glaring apple she has and allows him have fun for the rest of the daytime. Tom dashes to the town cube and teams up with Joe Harper and age mates. They have a mock fight. Parting the town square he drops by Jeff Thatcher's residence and finds new lass in town, and he falls for her instantly. At Tom’s tender age it is not expected of him to behave like an adult (Adams, 1997). Another incident depicting Tom’s wit is at Sunday school where he had to remember five lines of scriptures. As a prize for nearly memorizing them, he is awarded a Barlow knife. Tom takes showers and dons his fine pair of clothes and leaves for his Sunday school teaching. Prior to the class, though, he procures several diverse color tickets from among the kids in the class (Mark,.2011) Tom is unaware that these tickets are earned from successfully memorizing bible verses, and with enough of the tickets a child is entitled to a free bible. While, this is an overwhelming task and hardly a few have ever attained the ultimate price. Tom has "earned" adequate tickets to the shock of the supervisor and is bestowed his prize. Apparently, Tom’s game did not get well along since judge Thatcher comes around and posses several basic questions about the bible and he fails terribly. Nevertheless, the end justifies the means for Tom. The book also gives several anecdotes about a beetle and a dog during a church service that leaves the congregation in laughter. Thesis 3: There is childlike revenge in the adventures of Tom Sawyer The book describes Alfred Temple as the new kid in the bloc soon after Tom and Becky fall apart. In a bid to revenge on Tom, she pretends to be falling in love with Alfred. Alfred being the nut head he is, conspires to get Tom in some difficulty by dirtying Tom’s book with ink while the class is about to commence one afternoon. Becky would be glad to inform Tom about the incident but out of the thought of what Tom put her through, she chooses to keep it to herself (Keim, 2007). The idea is to make Tom feel pain the way she did. The mallet of vengeance falls summarily on Tom. However not sooner than Becky rips off a page from a textbook that their teacher has been going through. Becky is again tempted to tell on Alfred for fear of Tom informing the teacher about her mistake. Tom, equivocally, takes the burden for both the ink mistake, which he presumes that he had erroneously done himself, and barely an hour later again bears the blame for Becky’s textbook mistake. The bravery of Tom draws Becky to back to her old flame; Tom. The incidents portray a high degree of immature vengeance. Conclusion The Adventures of Tom Sawyer basically revolve around painting a tranquil picture of teenage life down the Mississippi River. While Twain satirizes grown-up conventions all along The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, he leaves unscathed certain larger concerns that his previous book explores decisively (McNeill, 2009) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer hardly deals openly with slavery, case in point, while the town’s abhor of Injun Joe portrays a brand of small-town dread of foreigners, Injun Joe’s murders more than validate the town’s mistrust of him. Since it stays clear of unequivocal condemnation of racism, slavery, and fear of outsiders, the narrative has largely runaway the debate over race and language that characterizes Twain’s previous book- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the last and current centuries (Sears, 1999). Up to the present day, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer reigns perhaps the most accepted and extensively read of all Twain’s art pieces. References Adams, F.D.,1997. The semantics of fictional names. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly,78(2),p.129. Keim, D.Y.,2007. Literature fingerprinting: A new method for visual literary analysis. Visual Analytics Science and Technology, 2007. VAST 2007. IEEE Symposium on,67(45),p.166. Mark, T.N.,2011.The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: Literature journal,3 (7),p.457. McNeill,G.M.,2009. The adventures of tom sawyer.New York: Pioneer Drama Service, Inc. Sears, R.T.,1999. Content analysis of Mark Twain's novels and letters as a biographical method Poetics, 7(2),p.678. Read More