Teaching Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Memorable moments for me in TS:
Whitewash scene, Ch2
First appearance of Huckleberry Finn, Ch6 (42)
Murder in the graveyard, Ch9
Tom and the "pirates" attending their own funeral,
Ch17
Tom taking Becky's punishment, Ch20
Courtroom Scene, Muff Potter saved, Ch23
Huck saving the Widow, Ch29 (176)
Tom and Becky in the cave, Ch30
Shortly Tom came upon the juvenile pariah of the
village, Huckleberry Finn, son of the town drunkard.
Huckleberry was cordially hated and dreaded by all
the mothers of the town, because he was idle and
lawless and vulgar and bad -- and because all their
children admired him so, and delighted in his
forbidden society, and wished they dared to be like
him. Tom was like the rest of the respectable boys, in
that he envied
Huckleberry his gaudy outcast condition, and was
under strict orders not to play with him. So he played
with him every time he got a chance. Huckleberry
was always dressed in the cast-off clothes of full-
grown men, and they were in perennial bloom and
fluttering with rags. His hat was a vast ruin with a
wide crescent lopped out of its brim; his coat, when
he wore one, hung nearly to his heels and had the
rearward buttons far down the back; but one
suspender supported his trousers; the seat of the
trousers bagged low and contained nothing, the
fringed legs dragged in the dirt when not rolled up.
Huckleberry came and went, at his own free will. He
slept on doorsteps in fine weather and in empty
hogsheads in wet; he did not have to go to school or
to church, or call any being master or obey anybody;
he could go fishing or swimming when and where he
chose, and stay as long as it suited him; nobody
forbade him to fight; he could sit up as late as he
pleased; he was always the first boy that went
barefoot in the spring and the last to resume leather in
the fall; he never had to wash, nor put on clean
clothes; he could swear wonderfully. In a word,
everything that goes to make life precious that boy
had. So thought every harassed, hampered,
respectable boy in St. Petersburg.
Critical Heritage, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
(1876)
Blair, Walter. “Tom Sawyer.” (sources)
-intermingled with “Old Times” and predicted Huck
Finn
- process of composition: inspiration “tank” that fills
and runs dry
- boyhood recollections, autobiographical
- folklore and superstition
- very rough town on the edge of the frontier
- embryo for book, “Boy’s Manuscript” 1870
- literary influences: dime novels and melodramas
- American writers
- grave robbers, Charles Dickens
- treasure, Poe’s “The Gold Bug”
- Aldrich, “The Story of a Bad Boy (1869)
- Twain’s own earlier treatment of children
Hill, Hamlin, “The Composition and Structure of
Tom Sawyer.”
- ragbag/organic theory vs. narrative plan: growth to
maturity
- began work: summer 74 finished in summer of 1875
- Blair's structure recounted:
Tom and Becky story
Muff Potter story
Jackson's Island Adventures
Injun Joe story
- Hill sees plenty of support for recollected memories
approach, no structure
- Also, sees support for very preliminary structure
(first page of manuscript):
1 boyhood and youth
2 y & early manhood
3 the Battle of Life in many lands
4 return & meet grown babies and toothless old
drivellers who were the
grandees of his boyhood. The Adorned
Unknown a faded old maid & full
of rasping, puritanical vinegar piety.
- Twain "tank ran dry" at Jackson's Island, deciding
which way to take the novel
Harold Aspiz, "Tom Sawyer's Games of Death"
- death and resurrection themes throughout
- Tom's fantasies, desire to be dead to 'show em'
- Grave robbing as resurrection
- Pirates considered dead then appear at funeral
- Injun Joe's intent on deadly revenge on the
Widow
- Tom and Becky's resurrection
Cynthia Griffin Wolff, "A Nightmare Vision of
American Boyhood"
- is Tom and his life the mythic All American Boy
story?
- No real town present (no stores mentioned)
- In Tom's world, town is nightmarish
- Missing fathers
- Few free positive adult role models
- Control very feminine
Carter Revard, "Why Mark Twain Murdered Injun
Joe – and Will Never Be Indicted"
- focus on Twain's hatred of Indians and why few
critics have every written about this
James Grove, "Mark Twain and the Endangered
Family"
- disrupted familial relations throughout Twain's
works, mothers waiting for lost children to
return, anguished relatives searching for missing
loved ones, children vulnerable due to lost
parents, families surviving conflicts
William M. Gibson, The Art of Mark Twain.
- the matter of Hannibal
- ingeniously plotted
- four distinct lines of action
o Tom's changing relationship with Becky
o Tom's relation to his Aunt Polly
o Tom, Huck, Injun Joe, Muff Potter
o Discovery and seeking hidden treasure
- story for children or a story about children for
adults?
- Tom's maturation process
- Pathos of Aunt Polly's feelings for Tom
James M. Cox, Mark Twain: The Fate of Humor
- describes TS as an "Idyl"
- Four essential elements in the world of Tom
Sawyer:
o Figure of Tom himself
o the summer world of St. Petersburg
o the audience – kids and society of the town
o the narrator, a member of the audience
- world of children at play, Edenic
- like a stage play, Tom performs for everyone in
the town in his serious play, ringmaster in a
circus
- adults in the book "show off" in their own ways
- "portrays all human actions, no matter how
serious, as forms of play