A literary criticism of the character tom sawyer - Essay Example

Therefore, this paper will give a literary criticism of Tom Sawyer’s character in Mark Twain’s novel ‘The adventure of Tom Sawyer’ from a Marxist view, a Formalism view and a Feminists view. Marxists believe that the human society is based on material things, which would ensure the survival of people. This means that the human society requires necessities of life such as water, shelter and food so as to survive. However, how people interact when producing these products and the people who control their production and usage determines the nature of the society they live.

Thus, Marxist view takes into account how much the working class struggle to gain a higher form of human society also known as socialism. Slaughter (67) argues that class exploitation, and oppression are due to the different ways production of material things is organized, which results in different classes in the human society that include slavery, feudalism and capitalism. From Tom Sawyers character in the novel, it is clear that he was a capitalist. He exploited his own friends in order to get money from them.

For instance, one of the main scenes in this novel is the white-washing of the fence, which Tom’s aunt had asked him to do as a punishment for getting into trouble. However, Tom and his cunning behavior decided to manipulate his friends into doing the job for him, and even collected money from them because each boy was expected to buy a turn at painting the fence with items such as marbles, bits of class and crackers among others (Twain 45). As a result, he became a young, wealthy boy at the expense of his friends.

He is a capitalist in that he gained his wealth in an unfair way from his friends. Therefore, this character of Tom, portrays how the working class who do not have land, inherited wealth or other means of providing for themselves are forced to sell their labor in the human society. Thus, Tom as a