The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
By James Topham
Mark
Twain is one of America's most-quoted and best-loved writers. He remains today
one of that country’s greatest wits and story-tellers, and his tales seem to
epitomize the steamboat South of the nineteenth century. Urbane, clever, but
always truthful in his writing, Twain has created a number of stories that are
loved by children and adults alike.
The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer is just
one of these tales, and is unequaled in its evocation of the Mississippi River
and the lives of those people who live on its shores. Touching and funny, and
always engrossing, The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer is, and probably always will be, a much-read American
classic.
Tom Sawyer is a young boy living with his Aunt on the banks of the Mississippi River. He seems to most enjoy getting into trouble. After missing school one day (and getting into a fight), Tom is punished with the task of whitewashing a fence. However, he turns the punishment into a bit of entertainment as proceeds to con other boys to finish the work for him. He convinces the boys that the chore is a great honor, so he receives in small precious objects in payment.
Around this time, Tom falls in love with a young girl, Becky Thatcher, and suffers under a whirlwind romance and engagement to her before she shuns him. She hears of Tom's previous engagement to Amy Lawrence. Tom realizes that his luck is not entirely in with girls, so he starts a firm friendship with Huckleberry Finn, the very poor sun of a town drunk. While on an adventure in a graveyard at night, witnesses a murder by a native American, Injun Joe.
Afraid of
the consequences of this knowledge, he and Huck swear an oath of silence.
However, Tom cannot help but break this oath when another man is tried in Injun
Joe's place. Tom testifies to what he has seen, the innocent Muff Potter is
released, and Injun Joe escapes through a window in the courtroom. Tom gets up
to various other adventures, including running away with Huck and another
friend, to live like pirates on an island in the Mississippi.
Believing that they are dead, the town prepares their funeral, at which the three boys suddenly appear causing consternation to all. The court case isn't Tom's only encounter with Injun Joe however, as in the final part of the novel he and Becky (newly reunited) get lost in one of the caves, and Tom stumbles across his archenemy. Escaping his clutches and finding his way out, Tom manages to alert the townspeople who lock up the cave, leaving Injun Joe inside. Our hero ends up happily however, as he and Huck discover a box of gold (that once belonged to Injun Joe) and the money is invested for them. Tom finds happiness and, much to his distress, Huck finds respectability by being adopted.
Tom
Sawyer is a riotous adventure shot through with humor, pathos and great spades
full of excitement. What's more the pure joy for life that Tom, Huck and the
other boys of Twain’s imagination go about their riotous business is a joy to
behold. It takes one back and makes one pine for a simpler time when the most
pressing business was whether to pretend to be pirates or go hunting for
treasure.
What's
more, by introducing Injun Joe into the mix, Twain manages to heighten the boys
adventures by adding real danger, real intrigue (and a little bit of real
life). Although he is, in the end, victorious, we cannot help but worry for the
easy-go-lucky boy, Tom, even though he rarely worries for himself. What's more,
in the character Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain has created a wonderful and
enduring character, a chipper poor boy who hates nothing more than
respectability and being "sivilised," and wants nothing more than to
be out on his river. Huck was so enduring that he well deserved his own set of
adventures (which Twain wrote as a sequel to Tom Sawyer).
Uproarious fun, and never lacking in excitement, Tom Sawyer is both a wonderful children's book and a book perfect for those adults who still are children at heart. Never dull, always funny, and sometimes poignant, it is a classic novel from a truly great writer.
http://classiclit.about.com/od/tomsawyercrit/fr/aa_tomsawyer2.htm
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