The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Character Profiles

Tom Sawyer
Tom is a mischievous boy who spends most of the novel getting himself and others into and out of trouble. At the beginning of the novel, he idolizes Huck as the personification of freedom and independence, but at the end, he persuades Huck to give up his freedom for a life of constraint and civilization with the Widow Douglas. Thus Tom becomes a spokesman for conformity, though this is tempered by his determination to set up a robbers' gang, which will provide an outlet for his romantic and creative nature.

Tom is throughout a leader in the games and adventures in which he and his friends are involved. He has a romantic imagination and absorbs tales of pirates and heroes like Robin Hood so thoroughly that he is able to memorize dialog and plots and recreate them in games with other children. He is like a theatre director in that he has the ability to construct a scenario and determine what each character in his 'plot' will do. He is also able to predict his audience's reaction. An example is his stay on the island with Joe Harper and Huck. He succeeds (with a slight struggle) in keeping the homesick boys on the island for long enough for them to create a grand theatrical entrance at their own funeral - and is welcomed home as a hero. To Tom, adulation is "food and drink" and is the most important part of any adventure.

Tom's leadership ability and theatrical skill are in part due to his psychological insight, which often surpasses that of adults. For example, he is able to get other children to do his whitewashing for him by making the job seem like a rare privilege.

Tom is notably superstitious and has a seemingly limitless stock of old beliefs which he brings out at any occasion. If the superstition does not bear out in reality, he always has a ready excuse, such as claiming that a witch interfered or that a vital part of a charm was omitted.

Early in the novel, Tom gives little thought as to the consequences of his actions and is often reprimanded by Aunt Polly for his thoughtlessness and selfishness. He is fundamentally good-hearted, however. As the novel progresses, he undergoes a moral growth and begins to consider others more and to try to do what is right, rather than simply what is fun. A turning point comes with his realization of the suffering he has caused Aunt Polly by his disappearance to the island. After the scene when he reassures Aunt Polly that he does care about her and she forgives him, he is so buoyed up that he nobly takes on the whipping due to Becky in school. Later, he cannot live with his bad conscience over Muff Potter's being punished for a murder he did not do, and testifies in court, risking Injun Joe's revenge.

Huckleberry Finn (Huck)
Huck is the son of the town drunkard and "the juvenile pariah of the village." Having no parental authority to keep him in line, Huck is hated by the mothers of the town because he is lawless and idle - and loved and admired by the children for the same reason. Because he does not have to wash, obey a timetable, go to school or church, or do chores, Huck is a symbol of freedom for the other children. He wears adult cast-off clothes and often sleeps in a barrel. The downside of Huck's life of freedom is that he only has the clothes he stands up in and seldom has enough to eat. From Huck's point of view, though, these apparent disadvantages are nothing of the kind. When Tom is trying to persuade him to give up his freedom and accept a life of civilization with the Widow Douglas, Huck reveals that he only values things that are "tollable hard to git." He has no use for the enormous sum of money they have come into - it came "too easy" - and tries to give it to Tom.

Finally, Tom does persuade him to return to the Widow, in return for Huck's being allowed to join Tom's robbers' gang. Throughout, Huck is happy to be led by Tom in his wild adventures. Huck is less of a romantic fantasist than Tom, being more of a realist, but he goes along with Tom's bizarre superstitions. One of the most obvious differences between Huck and Tom is their responses to danger. Tom is more likely to seek it out and think of an ingenious way to deal with it, whereas Huck's first instinct is generally to run away. He cannot be blamed for this, as it has probably allowed him to survive in his vagrant life.

Where Tom seeks out the role of hero, Huck is thrust into such a role when he is forced by Tom's absence to track Injun Joe alone. He acts selflessly by alerting Mr Jones to Injun Joe's imminent attack on Widow Douglas, giving as his reason her past kindness to him. Huck becomes a hero for saving the widow's life, though he is an extremely reluctant one. Because of his lone existence, he feels uncomfortable in groups of people and being the target of admiration or even affection.

How Huck finally copes with the strictures of being 'civilized' by the Widow Douglas forms the plot of the sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Injun Joe
The novel's villain. Injun Joe is half native American and half Caucasian, which accounts for his outcast status in the American South of the time. Injun Joe kills Dr Robinson in revenge for the doctor's father having driven him away when he came begging at his house, and then frames Muff Potter for the murder. Later, Injun Joe intends to maim the Widow Douglas because her husband, a justice of the peace, jailed and horsewhipped him for vagrancy. Killing and maiming innocent people is an extreme revenge for relatively minor offenses which were not even committed by those people, but by persons associated with them. This fact, and the sheer malevolence of Injun Joe's character, mean that we do not sympathise with him at all. He feels no remorse for his crimes and undergoes no moral growth: in short, he is an unredeemed villain.

Injun Joe escapes justice when he leaps from the courtroom window during the trial for Dr Robinson's murder. He subsequently adopts the disguise of a deaf and dumb Spaniard. That Injun Joe finally pays for his crimes is no thanks to a group of "sappy women" in St Petersburg, who petition the Governor to pardon him in spite of the fact that he is believed to have killed five people. Fortunately, natural justice takes over and Injun Joe dies of starvation after Judge Thatcher blocks up the cave he uses as a hide-out.

Muff Potter
A drunk and friend of Injun Joe's. With Injun Joe, he is employed by Dr Robinson to steal Hoss William's corpse for use in medical experiments. Injun Joe frames Potter for the murder of Dr Robinson. Despite his involvement in the relatively minor crime of grave-robbing, Potter is kindly, trusting and naïve, and falls for Injun Joe's story that he (Potter) did the murder while drunk. When Potter is jailed awaiting trial for murder, he believes that Tom is being a good and selfless friend to him by bringing him small gifts. He does not realize that Tom is trying to appease his conscience for failing to speak out about the true culprit.

Becky Thatcher
The daughter of Judge Thatcher. Becky replaces Amy Lawrence in Tom's affections and one of the plot threads concerns his attempts to court her. Becky is a well-behaved girl who is horrified when she looks set to be given a whipping by the teacher for tearing his book. Tom's selfless act in taking her punishment on himself wins her over.

Joe Harper
At the beginning of the novel, Joe is Tom's best friend, though after his stay on the island with Tom and Huck, he seems to be replaced in that role by Huck, and recedes from the plot. Joe is the first to become seriously homesick on the island and the first to try to leave.

Aunt Polly
Aunt Polly takes over the guardianship of Tom after the death of his mother, her sister. Aunt Polly is a kind-hearted woman who suffers much internal conflict regarding how to deal with Tom. She feels that she should discipline him, but when she does, she feels guilty and sorry for him. Aunt Polly wants to know that she is loved, and is made happy when Tom reassures her that he does care for her.

Sid
Tom's half-brother, who lives with him at Aunt Polly's house. Sid's character contrasts with Tom's: while Tom is badly behaved but warm-hearted, Sid is outwardly well-behaved but has a malicious heart. He repeatedly tries to get Tom into trouble.

Mary
Tom's cousin, who lives with him at Aunt Polly's house. Mary is a well-behaved girl who, unlike Sid, has a soft spot for Tom and does her best to keep him Tom out of trouble.

Mr. Jones
A Welshman who lives on Cardiff Hill. Mr Jones is a kind-hearted man who is alerted by Huck to Injun Joe's planned attack on the Widow Douglas. Mr Jones bravely sets out with his sons and frightens off Injun Joe and his accomplice. After this incident, he looks after Huck and reveals Huck's role in saving the widow to the townspeople, not realizing that the devious Sid has already let the secret out.

The Widow Douglas
A warm-hearted, pious and charitable widow who is viewed by the children as a friend. Tom suggests to Becky that they stay with her on the night after Becky's picnic, as he knows that she will give them ice-cream. Because she has been kind to Huck, he saves her from Injun Joe's planned attack. In gratitude, she takes Huck into her home and plans to educate him and finally set him up in business.

Jim Aunt Polly's black slave.

Amy Lawrence

The object of Tom's affections before Becky Thatcher arrives on the scene. Tom uses Amy in his courtship of Becky, to make Becky jealous.

Alfred Temple

A boy whom Becky Thatcher makes use of in order to make Tom jealous. Alfred has his revenge when he stains Tom's spelling-book with ink, ensuring that Tom gets whipped by the teacher.

Judge Thatcher

The county judge and Becky's father. Judge Thatcher is a local celebrity. When he visits the Sunday school, everyone shows off in order to impress him. Judge Thatcher forms a high opinion of Tom after Tom successfully gets himself and Becky out of the cave. He is indirectly responsible for Injun Joe's death when he blocks up the cave entrance for the sake of public safety. At Aunt Polly's request, he takes on the job of investing Tom's new-found wealth.

Dr Robinson

A local physician who employs Injun Joe and Muff Potter to help him steal the corpse of Hoss Williams for medical experiments. In a scuffle at the graveyard, Dr Robinson is murdered by Injun Joe, who then frames Potter for the crime.

Mr. Dobbins

The local schoolteacher. Mr Dobbins harbors a secret ambition to be a physician, and covertly reads medical books in class. Perhaps because of his lack of fulfillment, he has acquired a drinking habit. When Mr Dobbins imposes harsh discipline on his class in an attempt to produce impressive results on "Examination" day, the children take revenge at the big event by lowering a cat over Mr Dobbins' head. The cat claws off Mr Dobbins' wig, exposing his bald head which a boy has painted gold while Mr Dobbins was in a drunken stupor. The fact that he wears a wig is another sign that he is pretending to be something he is not.

Mr. Walters

The Sunday school teacher. When Judge Thatcher visits the Sunday school, Mr Walters shows off in an effort to impress him. He desires above all else to be able to exhibit a prodigy, but has to settle for Tom, who has accumulated by barter a stock of tickets awarded to other children for learning their scriptures. Mr Walters' vanity is not in doubt, though in this respect he is no worse than everyone else in the Sunday school class, from pupils to assistants to teachers, who all show off in front of Judge Thatcher.
METAPHORE : Insects

Twain often likens man to insect as a way of implying that both species are equally insignificant. In the "showing off" scene at the Sunday school during Judge Thatcher's visit, "The librarian 'showed off' - running hither and thither with his arms full of books and making a deal of the splutter and fuss that insect authority delights in." The image deflates the man's unwarranted self-importance.

A similar metaphorical use of the insect occurs when Tom's conscience is tortured by his knowledge that Muff Potter may be hanged because of his silence over the murder. There is a violent thunderstorm, which Tom interprets as God's wrath against him: "It might have seemed to him [God] a waste of pomp and ammunition to kill a bug with a battery of artillery, but there seemed nothing incongruous about the getting up such an expensive thunderstorm as this to knock the turf from under an insect like himself." On one hand, Tom considers himself as insignificant as an insect; on the other, because he specializes in casting himself as a hero at the center of things, he is convinced that he is important enough in God's eyes to merit a "battery of artillery."

Literal insects are used in church and school scenes to comment satirically on the events. While Tom is supposed to be listening to a prayer in church, he finds himself more fascinated by a housefly cleaning itself. His detailed observation of the fly comments indirectly on the tediousness, emptiness and insignificance of the prayer from Tom's point of view. A subsequent scene, in which the entire congregation's attention is stolen away from the sermon to to antics of a bug and a poodle, carries the same satirical flavor: when it comes to a contest between a bug and religion, the bug is the winner.

When Tom finds himself bored by his school lesson, he directs the movements of a tick on his slate, using a pin. The tick becomes a symbol of how the school tries to control Tom. It also reveals his selfish character: Tom is impatient when the tick is on his friend Joe's side of the slate, and changes the rules he himself drew up, in order to recover control over the tick.

Symbols

The town of St Petersburg

Many critics view St Petersburg as a microcosm of America. It contains in microcosm all the great institutions: public morality, the law, education, religion, medicine, and economics, enabling Twain to satirize them all. In this context, Tom, Huck and Joe Harper's escape to Jackson's island symbolizes their withdrawal from mainstream society as part of a rite of passage; they will re-enter society as more mature people.

The cave

In traditional stories of heroes and in more modern adventure stories, as a rite of passage marking the transition between boyhood and manhood, the hero often descends into a cave or labyrinth, where he undergoes ordeals. If he shows courage and passes the ordeals, he gains a treasure and returns with it to society, enriched and enriching others. Twain's novel follows this mythical tradition, which symbolizes the hero's withdrawal of his senses from the external world of illusion so that he can discover an eternal inner truth or self-knowledge (the treasure). Though Tom's irresponsibility leads to his getting himself and Becky lost in the cave, he acts with resourcefulness, courage and compassion and is able to get both of them out. Though he does not find the treasure on this occasion, he later realizes that this is where it is hidden, and returns with Huck to claim it.

The treasure

Treasure, particularly gold, is an ancient symbol of self-knowledge or wisdom. This holds true in this novel, with Tom and Huck having to show courage, selflessness and resourcefulness in 'earning' the treasure. It has a second meaning, too, symbolizing the boys' leaving behind their childish trashy "treasures" and their entry into the adult monetary system. Both meanings carry the sense of a rite of passage from childhood to manhood.
THEME : Moral growth and maturation

During the first part of the novel, Tom indulges in many pranks and adventures, giving little consideration to the consequences. Fortunately, those consequences never seem to be more serious than causing annoyance to authority figures. Everything changes when Tom and Huck witness the murder in the graveyard and Injun Joe frames Muff Potter, who is innocent of the crime. Suddenly, the boys' actions could make the difference between justice being done or an innocent man being hanged. Tom at first remains silent but has to appease his conscience by taking small gifts to Potter in jail. This shows some moral growth, but not sufficient to quiet Tom's bad conscience. This thread is finally resolved when Tom testifies against Injun Joe. Doing the right thing has overridden his fears for his personal safety. Tom's reward is the adulation he receives from the local people.

Other incidents fuel Tom's growing sense of right and wrong, notably his realization of how badly he has hurt Aunt Polly by staying on the island without telling her he was alive. He resolves this situation by reassuring her that he cares about her, and she forgives him. That Tom matures through this episode is clear when he selflessly takes on Becky's punishment in school - even after Becky has been rude to him. His development continues when despite his irresponsibility in getting himself and Becky lost in the cave, he keeps his head, selflessly looks after Becky, and gets them both out unscathed, once again finding himself lauded as a hero.

The culmination of the 'Injun Joe' and 'courtship of Becky' threads is Tom's discovery of the treasure in the cave. An ordeal involving the hero's journey into a cave or labyrinth is an ancient convention of many 'coming to manhood' stories. The treasure is both Tom's reward for proving that he is worthy of the status of a man and, more prosaically, a symbol of the adult economic system which he is now entering.

Huck also undergoes a moral growth. For most of the novel he is concerned with the necessarily selfish business of survival, but one night he finds himself alone when the time comes to track Injun Joe. When he finds that Injun Joe intends to attack the Widow Douglas, he recalls her kindness to him and commits an entirely selfless act, alerting Mr Jones and thus saving her from Joe.
Subsequently, Huck allows himself to be persuaded by Tom to give up his freedom for a life of being civilized by the Widow Douglas. Some critics say that Tom's championing of conformity, and Huck's grudging acceptance of it, mark both boy's maturation. This interpretation depends on equating respectability with maturity - something that Twain satirizes in the townsfolk. Others view the boys' conversion as a sad capitulation or a failure of imagination on Twain's part (he did not know what else to do with Tom). One thing is certain, however: the boys' final subjection to the restraints of civilization is a necessary rite of their passage into adulthood and into society.


The traditions and conventions of romantic adventure fiction

Tom is an avid fan of romantic adventure stories, such as those of Robin Hood, pirates and robbers. He and his friends give each other such names as "the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main." Tom remembers the plot and even long sections of dialog of such stories in detail, and regurgitates them faithfully in play-acting with other children. This is the more remarkable in a boy who is unable to memorize even a single Bible verse. He is preoccupied with pirates who steal money and kill people - though not they do not kill women, because they are "too noble."

The stories prefigure the 'real life' events that befall Tom: he witnesses Injun Joe's robbing of a grave, attempted extortion, and murder. When Injun Joe's accomplice begs him not to kill the Widow Douglas, Joe replies that killing is not the way to get revenge upon a woman: "you go for her looks. You slit her nostrils - you notch her ears like a sow's." Like Tom's pirates, Injun Joe will not kill women. But in a departure from the romantic tradition of the fictional pirates, Injun Joe's motive for stopping short of killing women is not nobility, but a more exquisite form of revenge.

One implication is that fiction to some extent mirrors real life but is ultimately less tidy and high-minded than fiction. But these romantic conventions may have another purpose in the novel. The criminal activities that Tom and Huck witness are horrific, but they do not seem overwhelmed or traumatized by them. In part, this shows the more casual attitude towards children's psychology in Twain's time. But it is also possible that Tom and Huck have been psychologically prepared by play-acting the stories of pirates and robbers.
Just as Tom's favorite stories often culminate in the hero's discovery of treasure, so does his own story. This is a pleasing, if somewhat unbelievable, meeting of the romantic adventure story tradition and Tom's 'real life.'


Freedom

Throughout the novel, freedom is equated with standing outside society's rules. Good behavior, as defined by adults, means a loss of freedom. It means whitewashing the fence on Saturday, having to while away tedious hours in school, church and Sunday school, and dressing in ridiculous and restrictive clothes like those of the new boy whom Tom beats up for being overdressed. Huck, who does not have to do any of these things because there is no one to tell him to, is admired by the other children as a symbol of freedom.

Tom occupies a position between the free and the imprisoned. Under Aunt Polly's orders, he attends school, church and Sunday school. But whenever he can, he escapes, most notably to the island, where he lives with Huck and Joe Harper as a pirate. Paradoxically, Tom defines his leisure activities with his own strict rules: there are things that are done and not done by pirates and robbers; and Tom's superstitions demand absolute adherence to correct procedure.

The pursuit of freedom, however illusory, has its price, as when Tom upsets Aunt Polly by his staying on the island without telling her he is alive. Tom's growing sense of responsibility, combined with his discovery of the treasure, makes him give up at least some of his wild ways and submit to the restrictions of society. However, he still intends to set up a robbers' gang, which naturally has strict rules about who may and may not join: tellingly, only "respectable" people are allowed in.

The fact that Tom begins the novel admiring Huck for his life of freedom and ends it persuading him to give up his freedom shows that he has accepted that life has to be led with due consideration of the effects of his actions on wider society.


Society's outsiders

Huck, Muff Potter and Injun Joe all live to varying degrees on the fringes of society. Huck, being the son of the town drunk, has no parental authority figure to tell him what to do. His lawless, idle lifestyle makes him "the juvenile pariah of the village," hated and dreaded by the mothers, and admired by the children.

After Huck saves the Widow Douglas from being maimed by Injun Joe, he is welcomed into society as a hero. The Widow intends to keep him within society's fold by housing and educating him, and finally setting him up in business. Huck's story shows that outcast status is not a fixed state, but is fluid, because of society's forgiving nature. Tom too is a beneficiary of this social fluidity, moving from a much-disapproved of status to that of a hero through a mixture of theatrical sensibility and a genuinely heroic and selfless streak.

Muff Potter, another drunk, is also taken back into society's embrace after his innocence becomes apparent. Though guilty of grave-robbing, he is essentially kind-hearted and, we feel, deserving of indulgence.

This deserving ability does not, however, apply to Injun Joe. While his "half-breed" race (half native American, half Caucasian) undoubtedly plays a dominant part in his outcast status in a slave-owning, racist society, he does nothing that remotely merits indulgence or forgiveness. Prepared to kill and maim people for slight reasons, he has a malevolent heart. But in spite of the fact that he is believed to have killed five townspeople, a group of "sappy women" petition the governor to pardon him. Here, Twain satirizes the unreasoning and sentimental sectors of society that fail to discriminate between those deserving and undeserving of forgiveness. Fortunately, Injun Joe's death puts a stop to the petition for pardon, with fate, rather than human wisdom, ensuring that justice is done.


Forgiveness

From the beginning of the novel, a tension is set up between discipline and indulgence, condemnation and forgiveness, regarding the relationship between Aunt Polly and Tom. She says, "Every time I let him off my conscience does hurt me so; and every time I hit him my old heart 'most breaks." The conflict is between head and heart, or duty and love. She seems not to want to discipline Tom too severely, perhaps because part of her sympathizes with his free spirit.

The theme of condemnation and forgiveness is taken up as it applies in wider society. Huck moves from being an outcast to being a hero for saving the Widow Douglas. Tom moves from being viewed as a mischievous child, also to a hero, for his part in saving Muff Potter from being hanged for a crime he did not do, as well as for his theatrical entrance at his own funeral. Muff Potter himself is taken back into society's embrace in spite of his faults and petty criminal tendencies: the fact that he means well counts for much.

In general, Twain presents this tendency towards forgiveness as a beneficent aspect of society. Though he mocks society's "fickle unreasoning" in its U-turn in attitude towards Muff Potter, he adds, "But that sort of conduct is to the world's credit; therefore it is not well to find fault with it" (Chapter 25).

Only once is forgiveness taken to absurd extremes: a group of "sappy women" sentimentalize Injun Joe, a man who has probably killed five people, and want him pardoned. Injun Joe does not deserve forgiveness because he shows no remorse for his crimes and holds only malice in his heart. The women are rightly foiled in their aim by Injun Joe's death.




Hypocrisy

In this novel, all of society's great institutions are present in microcosm, and all are satirized: public morality, the law, education, religion, medicine, and economics.

Twain's beginning assumption is that institutions and the people who represent them should be what they seem. If there is a gap, they are a fair target for satire. If a tavern is a Temperance Tavern, then it should not have a secret whisky den. A Sunday school is supposed to inculcate scripture and Christian values in children, not to enable children and teachers to "show off" before Judge Thatcher. Judge Thatcher, as the highest representative of the law in the county, should not be "showing off" at all, least of all in the Sunday school. Churchgoers should be more interested in the sermon than in the antics of a bug. Schoolteachers should be concerned with the education and well-being of the children in their charge; they should not, as Mr Dobbins does, flog the children in a desperate attempt to make a good showing on "Examination" day and get drunk before the event. The medical establishment should not hype the latest 'cure' at the expense of honesty and concern for the patient's well-being. Finally, society's equating money with status is questioned. It is suggested that society should evaluate people for what they are, not how much money they have; after Tom and Huck come into their money, the townspeople suddenly begin to see the profoundest sense in all their sayings, which they previously ignored.

Twain, often helped by his child characters, punctures the self-delusion of each of the hypocrites, revealing them for what they are - from the collection of grown-up children giggling in the church at the bug, to the sad, undignified, drunk and de-wigged Mr Dobbins.


Essay Q&A
1. Discuss the relationship between Tom and the other children in the novel.

Tom is a leader, and is generally in charge of plots, games and mischief involving himself and other children. He has at least two talents that set him apart from the others. The first is his romantic imagination, which enables him to memorize and improvise stories of robbers and pirates, cast his friends in the various roles, and regurgitate dialog as needed.

The second, often used in combination with the first, is his remarkable psychological insight, which exceeds that of adults as well as other children. This enables him to manipulate others into doing what he wants. For example, he persuades other children to do his whitewashing by persuading them that it is a rare privilege: "He had discovered a great law of human action... that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain." He is also able to persuade Huck and Joe Harper to stay on the island long enough for them to make a theatrical entrance at their own funerals. He does this, in the face of severe homesickness, by seducing them with ever-more enchanting pastimes. These include going swimming, learning to smoke, and finally, playing supporting roles to his starring role at the funeral service.

Tom is loyal and honest in his relationships with other children, even when this entails suffering, such as when he takes on Becky's punishment in school. This aspect of his behavior is contrasted with that of Sid, who is an outwardly well-behaved child who repeatedly 'sneaks' on Tom, getting him into trouble.

2. Discuss the role of friendship in the novel.

In the cases of Tom and Joe Harper, their families and schoolfellows sometimes fall short in providing the emotional support and understanding that they need. Tom and Joe decide to leave town for the island when Tom is rejected by Becky and Joe is rebuked by his mother for a misdemeanor he did not commit. Huck, being the son of a drunk and an outcast, has no one in his life apart from his friends. It is hardly surprising that friendship assumes a central place in the lives of these boys, to the extent that their families occupy a peripheral role. Tom determinedly defends his right to be friends with Huck in spite of society's disapproval. In playing with Huck, he disobeys his Aunt Polly, and in boldly admitting that he stopped on his way to school to talk to Huck, he gets a whipping from the teacher.

While Tom regularly disobeys authority figures, he is completely loyal to Huck, and faithful to the rules and agreements they make together. After witnessing the murder, they swear a blood oath to keep silent. Even after Tom's tortured conscience forces him to tell the lawyer the true story the night before the murder trial, he takes care to protect Huck by not talking publicly about his witnessing the affair.

The blood oath that Tom and Huck take about the murder, and the roles of partnership they adopt in their games of pirates and robbers, are ways of reaffirming and codifying their friendship.

Tom begins the novel admiring Huck for his parentless and therefore free status. But when they return from their stay on the island, Tom realizes that there is no one to welcome Huck home, and says, "Aunt Polly, it ain't fair. Somebody's got to be glad to see Huck." Aunt Polly is happy to fill the gap. Later, Tom persuades Huck to accept the Widow Douglas's care against Huck's instincts, surely because, at root, he knows that every boy needs to be taken care of.

3. Discuss the relationship between adult society and children's society in the novel.

At first glance, mischievous children like Tom, Joe and Huck seem to occupy an alternative world from that of the adults. The children seek to undermine adult authority, to puncture adult pomposity, and to assert their independence in any way they can. Examples are Tom's disruption of the sermon in church with the bug; the schoolchildren's prank against Mr Dobbins with the cat; and Tom's leading Huck and Joe off to the island. The children have their own system of belief - a limitless collection of superstitions, and their own trading system, in the form of the bartering of all sorts of 'treasures.'

However, the two worlds are more closely connected than they first appear. The adults join in with the mirth over Tom's bug because they find the bug's antics more interesting than the sermon. Mr Dobbins' vanity is deflated by the cat trick, but he provoked this act of revenge because he was being unduly harsh with the children in an attempt to produce a good showing on "Examination" day - to feed his vanity. In addition, he gave the children an opportunity to paint his head gold by sinking into a drunken stupor. In both incidents, adult pretentiousness and hypocrisy is being punctured by the children; there is a natural justice in the process.

In many respects, the children's world mirrors the adult world and acts as a kind of apprenticeship to it. The children's trading system, using bits of trash which are viewed as "treasures," provides practice for the adult economic system. This is made especially clear when Tom and Huck discover and become the owners of a hoard of real money, marking their transition into the adult world.

Similarly, the children's superstitions are set alongside the adults' religious beliefs and share certain similarities. Both appear equally ridiculous. After his superstition regarding his lost marbles fails to work, "Tom's whole structure of faith was shaken to its foundations." Both religion and superstition in Twain's portrayal emphasise the importance of form and playing by the rules (for example, ensuring that one follows a wart charm to the letter; and the adults' emphasis on attending church, regardless of the fact that a bug is of more interest to them than the service). Both have an element of faddishness and convenience: the children can pick and choose from a huge stock of superstitions according to which suits the situation they are in; and the religious "revival" that sweeps through St Petersburg is enthusiastically embraced and then forgotten about when it loses its charm.

By drawing parallels between the adults' and children's worlds, Twain suggests that adult society is not reliably more mature than the children's society. This proven by the Sunday school scene in Chapter 4, where everyone, from children to teachers to Judge Thatcher himself, is only concerned with "showing off." The adults' behavior is as childish as the children's.

4. Discuss the role of Tom's romantic imagination in the novel.

Tom's ability to construct heroic scenarios, arrange for them to be played out, and subsequently bask in the glory, gives him many of the qualities of a theatre director. It is but a short step from theatre director to writer of fiction, and critics have noted this autobiographical aspect to Twain's portrayal of Tom.

Supporting this interpretation of Tom's character is the comment by the British novelist Graham Greene (1904-1991), that "There is a splinter of ice in the heart of a writer." Greene means that a writer will use even sad or tragic events for material, even to the exclusion of more human considerations. We see this quality in Tom, when he returns temporarily from the island and is about to reassure Aunt Polly that he is alive, when he decides not to, in the interests of making a grand entrance at his funeral: "'Twould a spoiled everything" (Chapter 19). Tom's theatrical and writer instincts tell him not to let even his love for Aunt Polly stand in the way of a great story. Glory and adulation are "food and drink" to Tom, and none of his adventures are complete without the audience's positive feedback. The fact that he later comes to regret his decision not to tell Aunt Polly that he is alive is a mark of his growth in emotional maturity.

To some extent, Tom's imagined romantic adventures are a rehearsal for his 'real life' adventures. Without them, perhaps Tom would not have slipped so easily into his heroic behavior in supporting Becky in the cave and getting them both out safe.

5.Show how Twain uses satire in the Sunday school scene
Twain begins his satirical treatment of the Sunday school session before Tom arrives. Tom's failure to remember a single Bible verse does not divert him from his determination to become one of the select few to win glory - and, of lesser importance to him - a Bible for memorizing verses. He has to prove that he has memorized enough verses by presenting enough of the tickets that are awarded by teachers for learning verses. He barters "treasures" - bits of trash - in exchange for other children's tickets, and gets enough to be awarded a Bible in front of the class.

By showing Tom's fraudulent methods of gaining the Bible - which is belittled as a cheap book worth only "forty cents" - Twain shows the meaninglessness of the time-honored tradition of making children memorize scriptures. Twain also ridicules the assumption that a child's ability to memorize scriptures reflects upon their worth or personal growth, and implies that it actually does harm, citing the example of "a boy of German parentage" who "once recited three thousand verses without stopping; but the strain on his mental faculties was too great, and he was little better than an idiot from that day forth."

Twain uses the appearance of the Sunday school teacher, Mr Walters, to satirize the beliefs and attitudes inculcated by the school. The teacher has a collar so tall and stiff that he can only look straight ahead, having to turn his whole body when a side view is required. This symbolizes a narrowness and rigidity of outlook. Twain delivers a savage backhanded compliment when he describes Mr Walters as holding sacred things "in such reverence, and so separated them from worldly matters" that his Sunday school voice "had acquired a peculiar intonation which was wholly absent on weekdays." The satirical implication is that Mr Walters is a 'Sunday Christian' only, adopting a holy demeanor for that day, as opposed to genuinely living his religion, in which case he would be a Christian every hour of every day.

The satirical tone escalates after the arrival of Judge Thatcher and his party. In an effort to impress the eminent Judge Thatcher, everyone, from children to assistants to teachers, takes to "showing off." This involves, on the children's part, displays of familiarity with the Judge or misbehavior; on the adults' part, it involves displays of stern discipline or of unusual sweetness towards the children. Even Judge Thatcher shows off, trying to look grand. Twain shows the adults behaving no better than the children, and all being motivated by vanity.

When Tom presents his tickets and demands a Bible, Mr Walters is aware that Tom cannot possibly have earned it. But so overweening is Mr Walters' self-important desire to "exhibit a prodigy" in front of the Judge that he ignores Tom's lack of deserving ability and gives him the prize. The satirical climax of the scene comes with the Judge's fulsome speech in which he praises Tom's "knowledge," which is "worth more than anything there is in the world." He predicts that Tom will one day be "a great man and a good man" and that he will look back and realize that it is all owing to the "precious Sunday school privileges of my boyhood" and "my dear teachers that taught me to learn."

It is likely that the Judge's prediction was as unconvincing in Twain's day as it is now. Twain has shown us the connection between memorizing Bible verses and fraud, vanity, and idiocy (the case of the German boy); we have seen no connection between that activity and greatness. Even if there were such a connection, it would certainly not apply in the case of Tom, who, when the Judge asks him to name the first two disciples, comes up with the first two Biblical names to come to mind: David and Goliath. Twain's request that we "draw the curtain of charity over the rest of the scene" enables him to end with a punch-line and encourages the reader to complete the scene with his or her own reaction to Tom's public humiliation.

Analysis of Chapters 1-3

These chapters set up the relationship between Aunt Polly and Tom. Tom is the wayward boy, and Aunt Polly the disciplinarian - though it is a role that does not come easily to her. Aunt Polly knows that she should punish Tom when he misbehaves, but her warm heart often gets the better of her and she lets him off, only to feel guilty for spoiling him. She feels a mixture of exasperation at Tom's mischievousness and love and compassion for him, especially as he is the orphaned son of her dead sister.

Tom emerges from these chapters as something of a leader, partly because he is more psychologically astute than his peers. He manages to palm off the hated job of whitewashing the fence onto other boys - and get paid in treasures into the bargain - by making it seem like a privilege that is "difficult to obtain."

While from the point of view of the adult world, Tom is a rule-breaker, he and the other children have their own system of values, morals and rules. This value system is often at odds with the adult system. For example, while adults approve of children who are well behaved and conform to adult rules, such children are not necessarily popular among their peers, and certainly not with Tom. Tom is "not the model boy of the village" and "loathes" the boy who is. He also fights a new boy for being unacceptably well dressed. Tom's younger half-brother Sid is "a quiet boy, and had no adventurous, troublesome ways," but he comes over as an untrustworthy sneak who betrays Tom's misdemeanors to Aunt Polly. Tom is not fond of Sid, and pelts him with clods for his betrayal. Tom and Sid are contrasting characters, in that Tom is badly behaved but essentially good-hearted, whereas Sid's good behavior conceals malice in his heart.

A theme that highlights the contrast between the adult and children's world is that of freedom. Good behavior (as defined by adults) entails a loss of freedom. It means whitewashing the fence on Saturday, not being able to eat jam when you feel like it, having to stay in school when the weather is too hot for anything except going swimming, and dressing in ridiculous and restrictive clothes like the new boy's.

The adult and children's worlds are not always at odds, however. One way in which the children's system mirrors the adult system is economics. The children's system is based on "treasures" such as marbles and odd bits of trash, which stand in place of money and which they use to barter with each other. In a sense, this prepares them to enter the adult world. Also, the games played by Tom and his friends, and the superstitions they observe, are completely hedged in by rules every bit as strict as those imposed by adults.

The moral status of the adults in Tom Sawyer is ambiguous, to say the least. We do not gain the impression that the adults always guide the children in wisdom, judgment and maturity. In this respect, Tom Sawyer stands in revolutionary contrast with much traditional nineteenth century literature, which was written to keep children in line and obey their 'elders and betters.' In the relationship between Aunt Polly and Tom, for example, Aunt Polly struggles to retain her authority and is often unsure whether she is doing the right thing. Frequently, it is Tom who is in control, as Aunt Polly says in Chapter 1: "He 'pears to know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up." Later in the novel, we learn that many adult rules are governed not by what is right, but by hypocrisy, vanity and other human foibles.

Analysis of Chapters 4-6

In Chapter 4's Sunday school scene, Twain gently satirizes adult vanity and shows that adults are no more mature than children when it comes to showing off for the benefit of those we want to impress. Just as Tom shows off to impress Becky, so the Sunday school teachers show off to impress Judge Thatcher and the other visitors. Even Judge Thatcher shows off, trying to look grand. Tom is able to exploit the vanity of Mr Walters, the teacher, when he presents the tickets he has won from other pupils and demands his reward of a Bible. Perhaps if Mr Walters were not desperate to impress the eminent visitors, he would have investigated Tom's right to the Bible more carefully. But his chief concern is to "exhibit a prodigy," and so Tom gets away with his deception. The teacher's aim here is not to contribute to Tom's spiritual and moral growth, but to gain glory for himself.

Another target of Twain's good-natured satire is the dubious tradition of memorizing scriptures in the name of producing morally upstanding citizens. Tom buys his Bible-earning tickets not by the diligent learning of scriptures but fraudulently, with "treasures" - that is, bits of trash. Even honest students are miserably rewarded for their labors. The reward for learning a massive two thousand verses is "a very plainly bound Bible" worth only forty cents. Mary has won two Bibles this way; what use, we may wonder, are two Bibles? Twain pokes fun at the type of child who excels at this seemingly pointless activity: a boy "of German parentage" won four of five, "but the strain on his mental faculties was too great, and he was little better than an idiot from that day forth."

The satirical nail is driven home by Judge Thatcher's well-meaning but ludicrously inflated pronouncement: "you'll be a great man and a good man yourself some day, Thomas, and then you'll look back and say, It's all owing to the precious Sunday-school privileges of my boyhood; it's all owing to my dear teachers that taught me to learn; it's all owing to the good Superintendent, who encouraged me and watched over me, and gave me a beautiful Bible. to keep and have it all for my own, always; it's all owing to right bringing up!" The reader knows that Tom did not earn his Bible from learning scriptures. Even if he had, the reader is likely to be skeptical of the notion that any success that he later enjoyed could be ascribed to parroting scriptures as a child. After all, we have the example of the poor German boy to make us doubt whether any benefits can be derived from such practices.

Twain continues to satirize the cultural and religious rituals that bind small communities together in the church service scene in Chapter 5. The adults are as bored by the sermon as is Tom, and they begin to fall asleep. They are much more interested in the activities of Tom, the pinch-bug, and the poodle, but dare not admit it, and must smother their mirth.

A major character is introduced in this section, Huckleberry Finn. A symbol of the absolute freedom that lack of parental authority brings, he is hated by the mothers of the town and admired by the children. He does not have to do any of the irksome things that the other children are forced to: go to school, attend church and Sunday school, and work. He can do what he likes, when he likes. He wears cast-off adult clothes, which are suggestive of the fact that he is his own boss.

Like the adults with their faith in the ritual of learning scriptures, the children have their own rituals and beliefs, as is plain in the conversation between Huck and Tom about charms and folk remedies for warts. The superstitions involved are extremely detailed and complex, to the extent that there will always be an apparently rational excuse to explain away failure. Bob Tanner, "the worthiest boy in town," tried the "spunk-water" cure (rainwater scooped from a tree trunk) but it did not work. Tom explains its failure by suggesting that Bob forgot to say the ritual words at the stump and to keep silent on the way home

Analysis of Chapters 7-9

Tom's interactions with Becky show that, while he is ahead of his classmates in being interested in girls, he is still immature when it comes to dealing with emotions. He has a strong romantic imagination and can place himself in exciting narratives with ease, to the extent of recreating the dialog from stories he has heard or read. His mistake is to bring his games of make believe into his relationship with Becky, with unhappy results. Carried away by a romantic fantasy, he persuades her to get "engaged" to him, but in his excitement, blurts out that he was previously "engaged" to Amy Lawrence. When Becky cries, he cannot deal with the situation. Instead, he escapes into the woods and takes refuge in his fantasies of running away to become a pirate, and pretending to be Robin Hood.

Tom's choice of fantasy - that of becoming a pirate - is significant. To Tom, a pirate unites freedom with fame, but is mercifully free of responsibility or any awareness of consequences to actions. Tom's fascination with superstitions, such as his faith that a buried marble will somehow attract all his other lost marbles, has a similar basis in irresponsibility: unwilling to accept that the only solution to lost marbles is to do the hard work of looking for them or to take care not to lose them in the first place, Tom wants them magically to return in response to his charm. It is no surprise that the charm fails, but in seeking to blame a witch even for this, Tom still avoids facing the harsh truth - that he lost the marbles, and that they remain lost. However, responsibility and an awareness of consequences are exactly the lessons he is about to learn, the hard way.

The incident of the murder in the graveyard shifts the narrative, and the moral tone, to a different level. While Tom has always got into trouble, his activities have been harmless and have had no consequences. Now, he and Huck are witnesses to the murder and framing of an innocent man (Potter). Depending on what they do, or fail to do, an innocent man could be hung and the real murderer escape justice.

Injun Joe is presented as such an unregenerate villain that it is hard to feel any sympathy for him. The depth of his evil is shown by his eagerness to kill Dr Robinson in revenge for a relatively small offense, the doctor having driven him away when he came begging to their house and the doctor's father having him put in jail for vagrancy. Not only is he a murderer, but he pins the crime on an innocent man who trusts him. As a result, Potter risks being hanged.

Many readers will see the character of Injun Joe as a racist portrayal of a half-Indian man, called by Twain a "half-breed." This interpretation is supported by Twain's attributing Injun Joe's vicious nature to his race. When Joe tells Dr Robinson, "The Injun blood ain't in me for nothing," he is referring to his determination to avenge the minor offenses committed five years previously; the implication is that 'Indians' (Native Americans) do not forgive or forget and that they are ruthless in revenge. However, insofar as Injun Joe's outcast status is concerned, this cannot be taken as a sign of racism on Twain's part, as it is likely to be an accurate reflection of how a half-Indian man would have been treated in a small Southern town at that time.

Analysis of Chapters 10-12

For the first time, Tom is suffering serious pangs of conscience for his actions - in this case, not telling anyone that Injun Joe, not Muff Potter, was the murderer, and thereby potentially allowing Potter to hang for a crime he did not commit. These pangs of conscience show that Tom is becoming more mature, in that he is thinking about the consequences of his actions or inaction.

Tom and Huck think up various ways of appeasing their bad consciences, in the hope that justice will somehow be done in spite of their own inaction. First, they take a blood oath binding them not to tell, on pain of dropping down dead. The seriousness of the oath leaves them with no choice but to keep silent, thereby somewhat removing the sense of personal responsibility. Later, when Tom and Huck hear Injun Joe telling everyone his made-up story about Potter murdering Dr Robinson, they expect "every moment that the clear sky would deliver God's lightnings upon his head." Tom and Huck are hoping that God will do the job they should have done. When it becomes clear that God is not prepared to act on their behalf, they conclude that "this miscreant had sold himself to Satan, and it would be fatal to meddle with the property of such a power as that." Again, this relieves them of the responsibility to act.

However, all of these ruses fail, and Tom suffers disturbed sleep as a result of his guilt. He avoids the 'inquests' that the other children play-act. Finally, he takes to sneaking small gifts to Muff Potter in jail in an attempt to ease his conscience, with some success. But the sheer difficulty he is experiencing in coming to terms with these issues shows that he is reaching an awareness of the difference between right and wrong.

In Chapter 12, in the incident in which Aunt Polly tries to rally Tom's spirits by trying out all the latest 'cures,' Twain satirizes medical fads and people's blind faith in them. He compares Aunt Polly to Death, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Bible (Revelation Ch. 6). These horsemen are predicted to ride at the apocalypse, bringing death, war, famine and pestilence in their wake. The comparison is humorous because of its incongruity: the benevolent Aunt Polly is likened to the most terrifying of mythical figures. However, the comparison has a serious aspect to it, as countless people of Twain's time were made sick or killed by misguided medical practices and frequently toxic medicines.

Tom shows his psychological sophistication (as he did previously in the whitewashing episode) in giving Aunt Polly's Pain-killer remedy to the cat, which, naturally, goes wild with pain. The lesson reaches home: "Aunt Polly felt a pang of remorse. what was cruelty to a cat might be cruelty to a boy too."

When it comes to expressing his emotions to Becky, however, Tom is still woefully inept. When she returns to school after an absence, Tom can only try to attract her attention by showing off with handsprings and yelling. She is unimpressed, and Tom is aware that his approach has failed miserably.

Analysis of Chapters 13-15

Becky's rejection of Tom prompts him to act on an earlier impulse and run away to become a pirate. In the tradition of romantic fiction, Twain is suggesting that disappointment in love can drive a man to desperate measures. That Tom has an unrealistically romanticized view of the lives of pirates is clear from his description: "Oh, they just have a bully time - take ships, and burn them, and get the money and bury it in awful places in their island where there's ghosts and things to watch, it, and kill everybody in the ships - make 'em walk a plank. they don't kill the women - they're too noble. And the women's always beautiful, too."

There is irony in this idealized picture of a life of lawless behavior without consequences. Tom has just witnessed a real incident of grave-robbing, intended extortion, murder and robbery in the graveyard. He has been unable to confront the consequences of the incident - the potential hanging of an innocent man. He has instead run away and taken refuge in the fantasy version of such crimes, in which pirates rob, murder, but adhere to chivalric codes of conduct and are "too noble" to kill women. Similarly, he has been unable to deal with his feelings for Becky in a straightforward way. A tiny glimpse of the harshness of an outlaw's life is provided by Huck, a real-life semi-outcast, who comments, "I don't ever get enough to eat gen'ally - and here they can't come and kick at a feller and bullyrag him so." He also remarks that he has only the clothes he stands up in.

Tom has previously fantasized about dying in order to make those who reject or mistreat him sorry. Tom's escape to the island enables him to live out this fantasy, as the townspeople assume that the boys are drowned. The adults, in fact, respond exactly as Tom predicted, weeping and feeling guilty for not having treated the boys more kindly when they were around. The accuracy of Tom's prediction both shows his psychological astuteness and humorously comments on the hypocrisy and foolishness of adult society, which only values a person's inherent goodness after he or she is dead. This is made clear in Chapter 15 by Aunt Polly's stern rebuke to Sid for his dismissive comments about Tom: "Sid!... Not a word against my Tom, now that he's gone!" This is the first time we have seen Aunt Polly defend Tom against Sid's malice.

Analysis of Chapters 16-18

Tom's ability to stage-manage other people is clear in these chapters. He persuades his friends to run away with him to the island to be pirates, but they all soon become homesick. Determined not to give up before the time is ripe for their reappearance in St Petersburg, Tom re-engages them with his "secret" plan to make a theatrical entrance at their own funerals. His friends will be playing parts designed by Tom. His motivation in wanting to learn to smoke is similar. While he does not enjoy his first smoke, he creates an elaborate scenario of how he will look to other children when he first smokes in front of them, working out in detail what he and Joe will say and do: "And then you'll out with the pipes, and we'll light up just as ca'm, and then just see 'em look!"

Tom takes on the role of the theatre director, who decides what others will do and say, and also the role of chief performer: he wants to see the looks on others' faces when he gives his performance. It is this that feeds and motivates him. In observing others' reactions, he becomes the passive audience of the 'play' he has actively directed and starred in. An example is the incident in Chapter 15, when, from his vantage point under the bed, he covertly watches his family dissolve into grief over his stage-managed 'death.' What greater starring role could there be than to rise from the dead once more at his own funeral?

Another theme that is developed in these chapters is the mutual dependency of the adult and children's societies. Joe comments that "Swimming's no good; I don't seem to care for it, somehow, when there ain't anybody to say I shan't go in." In this novel, it is the role of children to do things that they are not allowed to do, and the role of adults to punish them for it. Though the children have impulses to independence, the freedom they crave loses its luster when it is no longer forbidden them. For the adults' part, they seem to have lost their appetite for condemning and punishing bad behavior now that the children are presumed dead.

Tom and Joe have imagined and played at breaking free from parental control, and they admire Huck as a symbol of the freedom they think they want. But Huck must live the reality, and it is anything but romantic. As well as being permanently short of food and clothes, he has no one to welcome him on his return from the island. When Aunt Polly takes pity on him and gives him a hug, he is so unused to receiving affection that he feels embarrassed.

Analysis of Chapters 19-21

Tom's behavior during Chapters 19 and 20 is both immature and self-centred. He invents the wild story of the dream in order to get himself out of a tight spot with Aunt Polly, who feels hurt that while he had no difficulty returning to St Petersburg for his own funeral, he did not bother to come back to reassure her that he was alive. He feels no remorse at lying to his aunt until she rebukes him for making her look a fool in front of Mrs Harper, to whom she recounted his apparently clairvoyant dream in good faith, unaware that Mrs Harper had heard from Joe that Tom had really returned that night. Tom, who is concerned above all else with looking good in the eyes of other people, at last understands the harm he has done to his aunt's feelings, and feels sorry.

Aunt Polly softens when he tells her that he does love her, and forgives him completely when she finds the note in his pocket that tells her that he did intend to leave a note for her. Aunt Polly feels that the fact that Tom's intentions were good is enough to excuse his behavior. She generously overlooks the fact that his reason for failing to leave the note was typically vain and morally bereft: he did not want to "spoil" his dramatic re-appearance at his own funeral. The 'dream' episode ends in Tom and Aunt Polly's genuine expression of love for each other, and Tom's genuine remorse for hurting his aunt. We feel a satisfaction in the resolution of the long thread of conflict between Tom and his aunt, and a sense that the heart is right to forgive moral transgressions in loved ones.

Aunt Polly's indulgent attitude towards Tom is set against Sid's cynicism. Sid is more psychologically astute than Aunt Polly, in that he never believed in Tom's 'dream,' but though he is right on the rational level, he is wrong on the emotional level. He dismisses Tom's claim of having kissed Aunt Polly as "only a - dream," but he is mistaken, first, because Tom really did kiss her that night, and second, because the love that prompted the kiss is real.

The atmosphere of love and forgiveness generated by Tom's reconciliation with Aunt Polly buoys him up so much that he spontaneously apologizes to Becky, with no mention of her petty behavior towards him. Tom's impulse towards selflessness confirms the ultimate wisdom of Aunt Polly's forgiving attitude.

Becky, however, does not respond positively to Tom's apology. A large proportion of these chapters is taken up with the ongoing battle between Tom and Becky, as each seeks revenge on the other for the latest insult. This is a never-ending escalating spiral of malice, which can only be broken in one way: forgiveness. Tom has learned the power of forgiveness in his exchange with his aunt, but Becky has not been through the same preparation, and rejects him. It is genuinely heroic on Tom's part to overlook even this latest display of scorn in his most self-sacrificing and noble act so far - taking the blame for Becky's 'crime' and accepting the whipping that she should have had. This naturally wins Becky over and the cycle of retribution between her and Tom is broken. Tom has grown up morally and emotionally, and has won the girl into the bargain

Analysis of Chapters 22-25

"Examination" day provides an opportunity for Twain to satirize authority figures. Just as in the Sunday school scene (Chapter 4), where everyone, including children, teachers and Judge Thatcher himself "showed off," Twain uses the universal human trait of vanity as the great leveler, uniting those at the top and bottom of the authority scale. He shows that nobody is ultimately more important than anyone else, however inflated their self-image.

Earlier, we have seen that Mr Dobbins secretly scorns his position as a schoolteacher, feeling that he should really be a doctor. This shows that he wants to be something he is not - a dangerous trait in Twain's writings and one that invariably demands that the person must be revealed for who he is, with all the accompanying shame. In Chapter 22, Mr Dobbins' desire for the school to "make a good showing," along with his penchant for drink, is his downfall. He cracks down hard on the children, who gain their revenge by lowering a cat onto his head. The cat pulls off his wig and exposes his bald head, which has been painted gold while he was in a drunken stupor. In fact, he presides over Examination day while still drunk, which calls into question his assumption of moral authority over the children.

The Examination day fiasco also provides Twain with the chance to satirize the painfully pretentious compositions by the schoolgirls. He singles out for special ridicule the forced moral contained in each composition. Again, Twain deflates hollow claims to moral superiority.

Adding the force of reality to his satire, Twain claims that the compositions are not invented by him but "are taken without alteration from a volume entitled Prose and Poetry by a Western Lady, but they are exactly and precisely after the school-girl pattern." Some critics see this comment and the section as a whole as misogynistic, as all the writers in question are girls, but this misses the point that the education of the time made a distinction between what was deemed acceptable for girls to read and write and what was deemed suitable for boys. Girls were encouraged to assume the role of moral guardians of family values and to read and write "improving" material, a role which these girls are enthusiastically embracing.

One of Twain's recurrent satiric targets is the perverse quality of human nature that finds overwhelmingly attractive those things that are forbidden or hard-to-attain. When those things are no longer forbidden or out of reach, they no longer seem attractive. Tom resigns from the Cadets because he is tormented by a desire to do all the things that are forbidden by the order, but when he is free to do them, he no longer wishes to. Earlier examples are Joe losing his desire to swim on the island, where there is no one to tell him he should not; and Tom getting other children to beg to do his whitewashing, a chore which he renders desirable by recasting it as a rare privilege.

Just as things that one is not allowed to do become attractive, so things that one has to do become unwanted drudgery. As Twain points out in Chapter 2: ". work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and. play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do."

Another target of Twain's humorous satire is the fickleness of people's religious beliefs. The town 'catches' religion just as Tom catches measles, and is under its spell for about the same amount of time. Even Tom, who resents his friends' unaccustomed piety, falls victim to it himself, becoming convinced that the storm is God punishing him for keeping quiet about the murder. As soon as the storm is over, however, Tom puts off his plans to reform. He subsequently relapses, leaving open the question of whether divine wrath is active in this case.

Tom's decision to give evidence against Injun Joe in spite of his fear for his life shows his moral growth. This has been foreshadowed in his heroic defense of Becky in the classroom, though the altruism of this act was slightly tempered by the element of self-interest - his desire to win Becky. In this case, Tom stands to gain nothing but mortal danger in return for his courageous act. He does it purely because it is right to tell the truth to protect an innocent man.

Though Tom has achieved an important step in maturity, he is still terribly afraid of Injun Joe. A further resolution will have to occur before this narrative thread can come to its conclusion.

Analysis of Chapters 26-28

In pursuit of an apparently unrealistic childish dream of finding treasure, Tom once again encounters his nemesis, Injun Joe - raising the narrative to a higher pitch of danger and suspense. As if to underline the fact that the stakes have risen and that Tom is now facing a desperate threat, the concept of "treasure" has suddenly shifted, from the bits of trash valued and traded by children to a hoard of real gold and silver collected and unearthed by Injun Joe and his fellow criminals. Paradoxically, even though Tom is suddenly involved with real currency that operates within a real economic system, it appears in the 'adventure story' form of a hoard of buried treasure. So unlikely and romantic is this that even Tom wakes up the next morning thinking it has all been a dream. One effect of introducing the romantic prize of the treasure hoard is that Tom and Huck's previous games of pirates and Robin Hood suddenly seem to be not mere childish pastimes, but a rehearsal for this crucial moment in their lives. Certainly, they are not overwhelmed by this turn of events but are able to treat it as a challenge, to which Tom responds with ingenious plans.

Another shift marking the transition between the child's fantasy world and the brutal reality of the adult criminal underworld is the change in the nature of Tom's fears. When he begins his search for treasure, he appears to have lost the moral stature he gained during his court appearance and has regressed to his former childish superstitions about Friday being unlucky and a witch having "interfered" with the treasure. When Injun Joe appears on the scene, such worries seem utterly trivial; once more, Tom and Huck fear for their lives. The suspense is raised further by Injun Joe's remark that he is seeking revenge: could he mean on Tom and Huck?

As we have seen earlier, Twain's portrayal of Injun Joe is seen by many critics as racist, with Joe's "Injun blood" being linked to his vengeful and malicious nature. Reinforcing this racist thread is Injun Joe's choice of disguise, as a Spaniard. The disguise makes logical sense because of Joe's dark skin color, but it can hardly be a coincidence that the only two mentions of foreignness in the novel are inextricably linked with criminality.

To label Twain a racist would, however, be simplistic and inaccurate. Whenever Twain touched on the subject of race in his speeches and writings, his views were remarkable for their progressiveness and humanity, especially in light of the fact that he grew up in a slave-owning family in the slave-owning South. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck, an outsider in society, helps Jim, a runaway slave and another outside, to escape his life of captivity. As a noble, selfless character, Jim is often viewed as the only genuine role model in the novel. He is not the creation of a fundamentally racist mind.

Analysis of Chapters 29-31

On the night of the picnic, Tom knows there is a chance that Injun Joe will appear the same night and that Huck will need his help, but he dismisses the thought because he is more charmed by the thought of spending time with Becky. Tom's desertion of his duty is a symptom of his irresponsible and still immature nature. In Tom's absence, Huck finds himself thrust into the centre of events as he witnesses Injun Joe's plotting to carry out a horrific revenge mutilation of the Widow Douglas. Huck is prompted to act by the widow's past kindness to him. He alerts Mr Jones, saving the widow from Injun Joe's malice. Huck overtakes Tom as the hero in this final part of the Injun Joe narrative thread. Huck has performed an unselfish act on a par with Tom's testifying in court.

Huck is not, however, a stereotypical or romantic hero. His primary aim throughout the novel is to remain in the background and avoid trouble. When trouble comes to him, his first instinct is to flee. These anti-heroic tendencies are evident when, unlike Tom, he does not dare to move in order to escape from the haunted house when Injun Joe and his companion are there. He has to be persuaded by Tom into such initiatives as following Injun Joe; he tries his best to avoid identifying Injun Joe to Mr Jones in an attempt to save himself from Joe's revenge; and from the same motive, he hides from the Widow Douglas rather than risk people knowing that he is the one who saved her.

It is impossible to criticize Huck for these retreating tendencies when they are probably responsible for his survival so far. Huck, unlike Tom, has no adult protector and is a social outcast. Like a wild animal, his best chance is to lie low and if discovered, to run away. But because Huck does his duty and stays at his post when Tom is getting himself and his girlfriend lost in a cave, he is rewarded by becoming the reluctant hero of the Cardiff Hill incident. This is a role that Tom would surely crave, if it were a matter of taking the glory and avoiding the lethal danger of Injun Joe's revenge. But Huck is not remotely interested in glory, wanting only to stay out of sight and survive.

The discovery of alcohol in the Temperance Tavern, like the Sunday school that excels in "showing off," the church congregation that finds a beetle more interesting than the sermon, and the strict schoolteacher who gets drunk before Examination day, provides another opportunity for Twain to satirize adult pretensions to morality. Far from being haunted, as its reputation claims, the room used by Injun Joe is in fact the illicit liquor store. The implication is that if this piece of hypocrisy in the midst of the town did not exist, Injun Joe would have one less hiding place from which to pursue his criminal activities.

Analysis for Chapters 32-34

These chapters show Tom at his worst and at his best: indeed, his worst and best qualities seem to be inextricably linked. Tom's success in getting himself and Becky safely out of the cave and triumphant return home mark the third time he has been greeted as a hero. The first time was when he led Huck and Joe Harper into their funeral service after staying on the island; the second time was when he testified against Injun Joe.

All three episodes, while they end positively for Tom, involve him in mischief and morally dubious behavior. The first episode had involved deceiving sorrowing relatives at home into thinking that he and the other boys were dead; the second involved Tom and Huck sneaking to the churchyard at night and staying silent about the murder they saw there. This time, Tom's irresponsibility in becoming detached from the rest of the party in the cave is to blame for their becoming trapped inside. He is also irresponsible in his desertion of Huck - because he is pursuing Becky instead - the very night that Injun Joe appears.

But the other side of this irresponsibility is his unquenchable zest for life and adventure, and his resourcefulness. Becky, whose instinct is to behave well and do what she is told, quickly gives up when she realizes they cannot find their way out of the cave, and falls into apathy and weakness. Because Tom is determined that they will get out, he takes charge of economizing on their meager resources and never gives up exploring the passages. Learning from his mistake in not marking their way in, he unravels a kite line behind him so that he can find his way back. Finally, he succeeds and saves them both.

Because Tom is treated as a hero after each of these episodes, it could be said that he is being rewarded for his bad behavior. But there are two qualifications to this interpretation. The first is that in each case, Tom learns from his bad behavior and genuinely turns the episode to good: even after he comes back from the island to his funeral, he learns from Aunt Polly's grief the effects of his actions, and is made stronger by his exchange of love and forgiveness with his aunt.

The second qualification is that as the Biblical story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32) shows, it is human nature for a loving parent to be more glad at the eventual return of a wicked runaway child returns than at the consistent loyalty of a good child. The ease with which condemnation turns into adoration is a target of Twain's gentle satire in this novel. We see it in Aunt Polly's conflict between disciplining Tom and indulging him, and we shall see it again in the townspeople's lionizing of the former outcast, Huck, when his part in saving the Widow Douglas is made public.

Twain is not seriously condemning this trait of hero-worshipping the former target of disapproval. On the contrary, he portrays it as a victory of the heart over the head; he has little sympathy for characters like Sid, who are too calculating to be ruled by love and forgiveness. But Twain does show a less positive example of the trait in the attempts by "sappy women" to have Injun Joe pardoned even though he has been responsible for the deaths of five people. There is justice in the fact that these attempts are foiled by Injun Joe's death, as (unlike the Prodigal Son) he has done nothing to show remorse for his crimes, has learned nothing from them, and does not deserve forgiveness. Injun Joe has evil in his heart; Sid has a kind of calculating malice; but Tom and Huck, like those who forgive them and hero-worship them, have fundamentally good hearts. Ultimately, Twain suggests, what is in the heart is more important than the niceties of a person's behavior.

Tom and Huck finally have the treasure in their possession, symbolizing that they will soon have real power and status in the adult world. Tom shows himself more ready than Huck to enter this world. Huck seems wary of going to Widow Douglas's house for the welcome party, whereas Tom is willing.

Analysis of Chapters 35, 36 and Conclusion

Twain does not let the rapid turnaround in adult society's attitudes to the boys pass without satirical comment on its hypocrisy. The townspeople, who once had disapproved of the boys, are now so impressed by the status conferred by their new-found riches that they pretend that all along that they saw early signs of their "originality." The boys find that whereas nobody used to take notice of anything they said, now "their sayings were treasured and repeated." Judge Thatcher, the local representative of justice and the punisher of crimes, in a masterly display of hypocrisy praises Tom for the "noble" and "magnanimous" lie that enabled him to take on the whipping due to Becky. With dubious logic, Judge Thatcher equates Tom's lie to the great George Washington's truth in confessing to his father that it was he who cut down the cherry tree.

A major motivation behind all this admiration and respect is made clear in Twain's description of the townspeople's new predilection for ripping up planks in every 'haunted' house in the area: they want to be rich, like Tom and Huck. There is a less selfish reason, too. People have a strong desire to create heroes, and when the hero-making process is under way, they temporarily forget all the things they used to criticize in that person. Without doubt, Judge Thatcher is delighted that Tom, as the special friend of his daughter Becky, is a hero, and he means to ensure that even Tom's classroom lie is recast as an heroic act - which, in a sense, it was.

Huck's desire to escape from the Widow Douglas's bedroom rather than go to the party shows how profoundly unsuited he is to adult "civilization." He finds being the target of admiration and gratitude as uncomfortable as the new clothes the widow provides for him. Soon, worn down by the unrelenting restrictions on his freedom, he runs away, and Tom finds him sleeping in barrels once more, and wearing his old rags. Huck is proof of Twain's dictum in this novel that mankind only values things that are hard to attain: he shows little interest in food that comes "too easy" and does not even care about the money because it was not "tollable hard to git."

The fact that on both occasions it is Tom who persuades Huck to give civilization another chance shows that Tom is more at home in this world. This is to be expected, since Tom, unlike Huck, has had parental figures in his life; now that he has money, he seems even readier to conform. At the same time, Tom, more than Huck, is a wild fantasist, and lures Huck back to civilization with the characteristically romantic promise that he will be allowed to join Tom's new robbers' gang. It is likely that Tom has evolved a strong fantasy world as his way of coping with, and rebelling against, the constraints of civilization. Another ally of Tom's in this respect is his psychological astuteness. Just as he manipulated other children to do his whitewashing for him, so he effortlessly manipulates Huck into returning to the widow by convincing him that robbers have to be "respectable." Huck, in turn, reconciles his yearning for freedom with his new civilized life by imagining that the widow will be "proud" of him if he becomes "a regular ripper of a robber."

For all Huck's protests, there is a sense of rightness about Tom and Huck's acceptance into respectable society at this point, when they have come into their fortune. Both have endured ordeals and have shown that they are able to tell the difference between right and wrong, and to act selflessly. As the Conclusion tells us, they are on the verge of becoming adults.


TOP TEN QUOTES

1. "Spare the rod and spile the child, as the good book says. I'm a-laying up sin and suffering for us both, I know. He's full of the old scratch, but laws-a-me! He's my own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't got the heart to lash him somehow. Every time I let him off my conscience does hurt me so; and every time I hit him my old heart 'most breaks."
Chapter 1

This quote lays out the basis of the relationship between Aunt Polly and Tom. Aunt Polly is torn between disciplining Tom, as her conscience advises, and indulging him, as her warm heart dictates. She is frustrated by the boy, but loves him and feels sorry for him because his mother, her sister, is dead.

The quote also reveals Twain's interest in dialect. He studied the dialect of his Missouri hometown, Hannibal (on which Tom's town of St Petersburg is based) and used the local vocabulary and pronunciations in Tom Sawyer. "The old scratch" is New England and Southern dialect for the devil.

2. "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."
Chapter 6

Huckleberry Finn is the symbol of that which is desired and admired by the children in Tom Sawyer - absolute freedom from parental authority. As such, he is feared and hated by the mothers; he is their worst nightmare, having no structure of rules or work. The different attitudes towards Huckleberry reveal the huge chasm between the values of the children and the adults.

3. "She [Aunt Polly] was a subscriber to all the 'Health' periodicals and phrenological frauds; and the solemn ignorance they were inflated with was breath to her nostrils. All the rot they contained about ventilation, and how to go to bed, and how to get up, and what to eat, and what to drink, and how much exercise to take, and what frame of mind to keep oneself in, and what sort of clothing to wear, was all gospel to her, and she never observed that health journals of the current month customarily upset everything they had recommended the month before. She was as simple-hearted and honest as the day was long, and so she was an easy victim. She gathered together her quack periodicals and her quack medicines, and, thus armed with death, went about on her pale horse, metaphorically speaking, with 'hell following after.'"
Chapter 12

Twain satirizes medical fads and people's unquestioning belief in each new one, despite the fact that it invariably contradicts the previous fad. He humorously compares Aunt Polly to Death, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Bible (Revelation Ch. 6). These horsemen are predicted to ride at the apocalypse, bringing death, war, famine and pestilence in their wake. It was no secret at the time that doctors and patent medicines were a common cause of sickness and death.

4. "Oh, they just have a bully time - take ships, and burn them, and get the money and bury it in awful places in their island where there's ghosts and things to watch, it, and kill everybody in the ships - make 'em walk a plank. they don't kill the women - they're too noble. And the women's always beautiful, too."
Chapter 13

After he has been rejected by Becky, Tom runs away with Joe Harper and Huck to an island, to become a pirate. Tom gives a romanticized description of the life of a pirate, drawn from romantic fiction. He lacks a realistic understanding of the consequences of stealing money and killing people, despite the fact that he has recently witnessed a real incident of attempted extortion, murder and robbery in the graveyard. He still lacks the maturity to confront either this event or Becky's attitude, preferring to take refuge in fantasy.

5. "As the service proceeded, the clergyman drew such pictures of the graces, the winning ways, and the rare promise of the lost lads, that every soul there, thinking he recognized these pictures, felt a pang in remembering that he had persistently blinded himself to them always before, and had as persistently seen only faults and flaws in the poor boys."
Chapter 18

Twain satirizes the hypocritical tendency of society to value and praise people only when it has lost them. The town believes that Tom, Huck and Joe Harper are drowned, and suddenly, all those who vilified and scolded them in life are eulogizing them. Tom, with his psycholgical astuteness, has more than once predicted such a turnaround if he were suddenly to die.

6. "'Aunt Polly, it ain't fair. Somebody's got to be glad to see Huck.'"
Chapter 18

When Tom, Joe Harper and Huck make a dramatic entrance into the church for their own funeral service, Tom and Joe are greeted ecstatically by their loving families. Huck, however, has no family to greet him, and can only stand to one side awkwardly. While Huck is idolized by the town's children for the freedom he enjoys from parental authority, Twain is showing us the other side of his independent state: the lack of love and caring in his life.

7. "What a hero Tom was become now! He did not go skipping and prancing, but moved with a dignified swagger, as became a pirate who felt that the public eye was on him. And indeed it was; he tried not to seem to see the looks or hear the remarks as he passed along, but they were food and drink to him."
Chapter 19

On his return from his sojourn on the island pretending to be a pirate, Tom is treated like a hero. This is partly because the townspeople assumed that the boys were dead. Tom has carefully stage-managed his disappearance, his romantic existence on the island, and his return at his own funeral, for maximum effect. For Tom, seeing the response of his 'audience' to his actions is the most important thing in life: it is "food and drink" to him.

8. ". work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and. play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service that would turn it into work, then they would resign."
Chapter 23

This observation highlights a major theme: the attractiveness of things that are forbidden or hard to attain, and the unattractiveness of things that are allowed or that one is obliged to do in the way of work. When Tom joins the Cadets of Temperance, he is not allowed to drink, smoke or swear, and becomes desperate to do so. He resigns, and promptly loses the desire to do any of those things.

This perverse quality of human nature is satirized by Twain throughout the novel. It is the reason why Tom's ruse to make other children whitewash the fence (Chapter 2) works so well; he makes the chore seem like a rare privilege, so everyone wants to be 'allowed' to do it.

9. "Tom was a glittering hero once more. There were some that believed he would be President yet, if he escaped hanging."
Chapter 25

Tom becomes a hero for his selfless act in giving evidence against Injun Joe, the true murderer of Dr Robinson. The townspeople believe that he will either be President or be hanged - an expression of the extremes of Tom's character. On one hand, he is capable of devious, theatrical and self-interested behavior, as Aunt Polly repeatedly points out. But as the novel progresses, such behavior becomes more rare and is replaced by more mature, selfless and spontaneously generous acts. The growth of these qualities is shown by his earlier unprompted apology to Becky, his subsequent defense of her in the classroom, and now his crucial appearance as a witness for Muff Potter's defense. This last is an act prompted not by self-interest but by a desire to do the right thing and see the innocent Potter go free. On the contrary, Tom risks his life by speaking out, as Injun Joe is a lethal enemy.

10. "Huck Finn's wealth, and the fact that he was under the Widow Douglas's protection, introduced him into society - no, dragged him into it, hurled him into it - and his sufferings were almost more than he could bear. whithersoever he turned, the bars and shackles of civilization shut him in and bound him hand and foot."
Chapter 36

Throughout the novel, 'civilized' adult society is seen primarily from the viewpoint of renegade children like Tom, Huck and Joe Harper, as something restrictive, irritating and arduous. Adult society would see Huck's life of freedom as cruel suffering, and the Widow Douglas's adoption of Huck as a generous act of charity, albeit one that Huck has deserved for his part in saving her from Injun Joe's revenge.


DEFINITION OF PERSONALITY

Personality is a determinant of behavior. According to Kurt Lewin’s formula:

BEHAVIOR (B) = F[ PERSONALITY (P), ENVIRONMENT (E) ]

We can see that the determinants (causes) of BEHAVIOR can be separated into 2 classes of variables: PERSONALITY AND ENVIRONMENT. The difference is that PERSONALITY variables are internal causes of behavior (inside the skin) and ENVIRONMENTAL variables are external causes of behavior.

When we ask why we do what we do (Why we behave the way that we behave?), the answers are either personality variables or environmental variables, or some combination of both.
Definition of Personality
 Consistent behavior patterns and intrapersonal processes originating in the individual
 Emphasizes consistency
 Emphasizes intra- rather than interpersonal processes
 Emphasizes individual as source of patterns

personality -- (the complex of all the attributes--behavioral, temperamental, emotional and mental--that characterize a unique individual; ``their different reactions reflected their very different personalities"; "it is his nature to help others'' )
• identity, personal identity, individuality -- (the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity; ``you can lose your identity when you join the army'' )
• personableness -- (the complex of attributes that make a person socially attractive)
• anal personality, anal retentive personality -- ((psychoanalysis) a personality characterized by meticulous neatness and suspicion and reserve; said to be formed in early childhood by fixation during the anal stage of development (usually as a consequence of toilet training))
• genital personality -- ((psychoanalysis) the mature personality which is not dominated by infantile pleasure drives)
• narcissistic personality -- (personality marked by self-love and self-absorption; unrealistic views about your own qualities and little regard for others)
• obsessive-compulsive personality -- (personality characterized by a strong need to repeat certain acts or rituals)
• oral personality -- ((psychoanalysis) a personality characterized either by generous optimism or aggressive and ambitious selfishness; formed in early childhood by fixation during the oral stage of development)