Position:Home>Books & Authors> The adventures of tom sawyer?

The story is set in the spring and summer, sometime between 1836 and 1846, in the Mississippi River town of St!. Petersburg, a fictionalized version of Twain's own boyhood home of Hannibal, Missouri!. Each of the three major plot lines contributes to at least one of the novel's satiric targets: the stereotypical good boy of juvenile fiction, the oppressive and sentimental moral codes of small Southern towns, and literary romances!. The part that forms a nostalgic portrait of boyhood manners and morals is undoubtedly what inspired Twain to say that his novel is simply a hymn, put into prose form to give it a worldly air!. Tom Sawyer is always at odds with authority figures and the village institutions of school and church!. In the opening chapter, he fights a new boy in town and lies about playing hooky from school!. In an episode well known even to those who have never read the book, he turns his subsequent punishment into a triumph by tricking his friends into paying him for the privilege of whitewashing a fence!. Tom also gets into trouble at Sunday School when he trades trinkets for the tickets that indicate that he has memorized enough Scripture to be awarded a free bible; he embarrassingly reveals his true ignorance when questioned during the presentation ceremony!. Later, Tom runs away with Joe Harper and Huck Finn to become a pirate on nearby Jackson's Island!. When he learns that he and his companions are presumed to have drowned, Tom delays going home so that he can stage a dramatic return during his own funeral!.

The second subplot, a comical love story, is divided into two widely separated parts!. The first mocks the sentimentality of youth (and the romantic fiction that shapes their attitudes) by having Tom become engaged to Becky Thatcher and then become estranged from her!. Tom tries to show off to win her back!. After the Jackson's Island episode, the pattern reverses: she desperately shows off to win him!. They are reconciled when Tom, displaying chivalric nobility, takes a severe whipping from the schoolmaster for ripping a book that Becky had actually torn!. In the last part of the novel, he again displays chivalric courage by rescuing her when she romantically resigns herself to death after they become trapped in a cave!.

The third plot line is a romantic adventure of revenge and murder that also satirizes Tom's adulation of pirates and robbers by picturing real outlaws as vicious and unromantic!. It begins when Tom and Huck see Injun Joe murder Dr!. Robinson in the graveyard and then frame the alcoholic Muff Potter for the crime!. Although terrified of Injun Joe, Tom dramatically reveals the truth at Muff's trial!. But Injun Joe, who was once horsewhipped by the Widow Douglas's husband and is plotting revenge, escapes from the courthouse!. While searching for Injun Joe's treasure, Huck discovers and prevents Injun Joe's plan to mutilate the Widow!. Tom, who is lost in the cave with Becky, discovers the hidden treasure, and, after Injun Joe dies when the cave is sealed shut, he and Huck recover the money and become wealthy!. The Widow Douglas takes in Huck, but he is unable to tolerate the rules of civilization and tries to run away!. Tom, however, convinces him that he has to return and be respectable if he wants to join Tom's new gang of robbers!.

Source: Mark Twain: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, in Characters in Children's Literature, Gale Research, 1997!.

Source Database: Literature Resource Center
(your local library may provide access to this source via its Web site - or, I'm sure you could find books about Tom Sawyer in the library)
http://lists!.webjunction!.org/libweb/

Sparknotes site:
http://www!.sparknotes!.com/lit/tomsawyer/!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

Unkempt and undesireables of society continue to be an attribute to society despite their social status and upbringings!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---