You’re sitting on your beaten up couch with your clothes soaked, as you use your imagination to think of what your mother might have in store for you this time. Will you not be able to goof off with your buddies, or no more sweets for the rest of the week? Scoldings are nothing new, been there, done that. But maybe this is her last strand, maybe you have gone too far. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, written by Mark Twain, Tom is a boy that gets away with everything. He lives in a fantasy world where children are allowed to do almost anything and everything they please, without serious consequence.
Mark Twain wrote this book after Civil War, so everyone wanted romance, so it would lift their spirits when it seemed like nothing was going right. They would read these types of books, and imagine themselves in this exquisite world, where even in a time in need; you have fun without getting into major trouble. Tom Sawyer could skip school, runaway, and even witness a murder, and still be just an innocent small boy. Tom skips school one day to go swimming. He comes home, and his aunt suspects something is up. She questions him, and he does such a good job of lying to her, and convinces her that he was in school the whole day. I'm not sure how, but Aunt Polly believes him. Not until his brother, Sid, comes in, he is having a great time, knowing that he had yet again avoided punishment. Sid tells on Tom, but Tom has already left to go meet up with his friends.
Tom is a boy that lives in a small town, in a small house, with a small family. His family doesn’t have much money, and he doesn’t have many nice clothes, or much food. Still, he makes the best of things and has such a great time doing it. He has an adventurous mind that is always looking for something new to do. Although Tom has so many fantastic times, he does experience some horrific or sad. When Tom and Huck were hunting for treasure in the haunted house, they come to realize that Injun Joe, one of the scariest people in the area they live in, is trying to hide his treasure there. They sneak upstairs, hoping not to be seen. They sit and sit, waiting for these horrible people to leave, so they too, could leave. Injun Joe’s partner, some they call Spaniard, notices their tools lying on the ground. He tells Injun Joe, who thinks to go check upstairs, to make sure that the tools owners weren’t spying on them. Half way up the stairs, he decides to leave the people, saying that they can tell everyone about their plans; they would be long gone by then. In the real world, this probably wouldn’t happen; Tom and Huck would have gotten caught, and may have been goners. This scene just shows what kind of world Mark Twain was picturing while writing this.
Innocence: a word that describes Tom Sawyer. The theme in this book is innocence to innocence. Tom does learn from all of his mistakes, which would make him be more experienced, but he does nothing with what learns. Tom learns that when you run away, you are missed dearly, and it hurts everyone that cares for you. He learned this after coming back from his pirate adventure, but when he and Becky ran off in the cave, he didn’t once think about his aunt or siblings, and how much they would miss him. In our world, sometimes we forget things, and we usually don’t get away with it too easily. Tom forgets nearly everything, but still gets by smoothly.
Sitting in your room, not too thrilled to be there, think about how miserable this weekend will be. This world is harsh and full of predicaments, very much unlike Tom Sawyer’s world. He can go off on pirating adventures or skip school to go swimming, but every single kid and a lot of adults admire him. That is why, in this small town in Missouri, everything is unrealistic, and seems to be the perfect world.
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