A BOY’S ADVENTURE-FILLED CURIOSITY
...king various questions. He seems to have a feeling of being eager to have a try.” But the above-mentioned “all kinds of things” must be novel things. Here we have an example: “Jenny, age four, is given a choice of playing with different toys. Toy A is familiar, a toy she has played with several times. Toy B is unfamiliar and is thus perceived by Connie as a novel stimulus. If she selects toy B over toy A, we are likely to explain the choice by saying she is curious about toy B.” Therefore curiosity behavior should be defined as “behavior characterized by explanatory or stimulus-seeking response to either novel or complex stimuli” . Novelty is identified in the definition. A stimulus is novel if it is new or different, such as toy B for Jenny, which qualifies as novel stimulus. As one of the general drives, curiosity plays a very important role in children’s life. For children, the world is mysterious, fascinating, rich and colorful. They usually spare no efforts to try to understand everything or experience everything that they become interested in. When Mark Twain creates Tom Sawyer and other characters in the story, he gives prominence to children’s curiosity, attempting to capture the general feeling of young readers. 2. Curiosity Behavior in the Story In the story, one of the typical examples of children’s curiosity can be found in the most famous episode in Tom Sawyer — Tom’s deceiving his friends into “enjoying” the privilege of whitewashing Aunt Polly’s fence. Tom is punished to whitewash Aunt Polly’s fence on Saturday morning when every child can go out and play. Tom attempts to persuade Jim, a colored boy, to whitewash some instead of doing it himself. He promises to show Jim his sore toe. “Jim was only human—this attraction was too much for him.” Driven by curiosity, “he put down his pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing interest while the bandage was being unwounded” . Jim is sure to whitewash the fence if Aunt Polly does not return home from the field. Tom fails. Yet at this moment “a great, magnificent inspiration bursts upon him” . He manages to make his hard work very novel in order to arouse the curiosity of the children who pass by the fence. He even exclaims: “Like it? Well, I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence everyday?” Besides, he pretends to refuse one of his friend’s requests of having a try. Thus the hard work appears so fascinating that it lures all the children in the village. All of them try to be the first to enjoy the privilege of whitewashing the face. In fact, curiosity plays such a great role in children’s psychology that if not compelled by curiosity, Tom Sawyer and other characters in the story would not have episodes of the childish imitation, the superstitious trip to the graveyard, the adventures on the isolated island and in the cave or the discovery of the hidden gold which comprise most part of the story to young reader’s delight. Ⅳ、Children’s Fantasy World and Heroism 1. Fantasy World 1. 1 Brief Analysis “Fantasy is a imagination or fancy, especially when completely unrelated to reality.” It produced by the imagination in contrast to images produced by the senses. This process can be said to apply both daydreams and night dreams. Distinctly, Tom’s intention of being a great hero brings his fantasies. 1. 2 Tom’s Fantasy World In Tom’s fantasy world, the small village of St. Petersburg is an ideal place where he can take thrilling adventures. Cardiff Hill is the Sherwood Forest in Robin Hood. Jackson’s Island is the nest of pirates. He decides to be a pirate who “sears the eyeballs of all his companions with unappeasable envy” . Fantasy plays a considerable part in a child’s life, especially as an important element in play. It is in Tom Sawyer that young readers find their own similar fantasy world in which all of the imaginary sequences star themselves as heroic figures. Tom is tired of the spiritless life in the village, and he finds refuge in his fantasy world. Fantasy is understood to be unreal and non-reality offers humans a refuge from reality. What makes Tom delightful to young readers is that on the imaginative side he is very much more, and though every boy has wild and fantastic dreams, this boy cannot rest till he has somehow realized them. Yet one thing we should keep in mind is that Tom is a very lucky boy, and that he does manage to have life live up to his favorite stories, making the village of St. Petersburg a place where there exist pirates, glory and hidden treasure. 2. The Tendency to Heroism 2. 1 Brief Analysis As said before, children are keen on heroic conduct and thrilling adventures. The tendencies to heroism, being fond of showing off his bravery are the characteristics in the period of a child’s life. Like most children, Tom is eager to cause a star in the community. He wishes to travel around the world, to be a soldier, a pirate so as to stroll into the St. Petersburg church some Sunday morning and bask in the respect of the village. Tom does grow into a hero at the end of the story, disguised as a mischievous and disobedient boy. Tom can achieve that because whatever he has read of that world beyond the village, in which pirates, Robin Hood and medieval knight act out some gorgeous “code”, Tom himself must act out. Besides, Tom’s dominant trait, that is, his unquestioned sense of himself as guide and leader to every other boy in town, leads to the success of his heroic conduct. Other boys follow him for they can no more resist Tom’s wild fancy than young readers can resist Twain’s. 2. 2 Tom’s Heroic Conduct The tendency to heroism as part of the motivation leads Tom to win victory amazingly and finally becomes a great hero in the community. Tom, Huck and Joe flee to the isolated island to act out pirates’ “gorgeous” code, leaving the whole village in chaos. In his stealthy visit to home, he keeps mum when Aunt Polly and Joe’s mother are lamenting the boys’ presumed death. Tom manages the appearance of the boys at their own “funeral”. Among the envying boys around him, the “pirate” obtains “the proudest moment of his life”. Tom’s escape from society’s trammels has been only temporary, designed as the means of purchasing society’s applause. Tom appears cruel to kind-hearted Aunt Polly unless we understand his psyche. Tom, like children in general, “always hopes to be thought highly of. This expectation expresses itself in various forms: the sense of self-esteem, vanity, being conceited and demanding perfection.” Tom’s impelling desire for a place of honor in the community is a key to his initiating action. To young readers especially, Tom’s heroic mettle has its natural appeal. Twain offers adventures that all boys, in their longing dreams, make believe they have. He makes extravagant, dramatic things happen to Tom. What boy can resist the temptation to escape for a while from his routine life into the heroic excitement of Tom’s world? Ⅴ、Unconventional Writing Suitable for Children 1. Conventional Patterns Another reason that Tom Sawyer attracts young readers so greatly is its departure from the pattern of earlier juvenile fiction, which does not go along with the children’s psychology. Actually, Tom Sawyer attacks the earlier juvenile literature. 2. Twain’s Unconventional Pattern Mark Twain has much more profound understanding of what an ordinary boy and the normal history of boyhood should be like. He realizes the fact that “every one of us has a period of being mischievous in childhood, just as we cannot avoid smallpox or measles.” In Tom Sawyer, Twain tries to eliminate that incongruity between fiction and the real life of a boy so as to make the story easier to be accepted by young readers. The complexity of Tom’s characterization makes him a believable character. Any young reader can find similarities between Tom and himself. He can even find some relief in the story because Tom’s adventures are just what they long to have, and because the presumed Bad Boy whom most of them are presumed to be is in fact not bad at all. The Bad Boy gets his justification in the story and becomes a hero in the end. As a mixture of virtue and mischievou...