Charms of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Charms of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Ⅰ、Introduction Sparkling with mischief, jumping with youthful adventure, Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer is one of the most splendid recreations of childhood in all of literature. Tom Sawyer is the first of a long line of adolescent heroes in American fiction. ... Since Tom Sawyer is regarded as a masterpiece in the children’s literature, the real key to its success must be sought in its popularity among young readers. On the basis of psychology, this thesis intends to explore in what way Tom Sawyer goes along with the children’s psychology and therefore wins the admiration of young readers. ... In this story, Mark Twain makes Tom Sawyer a professional boy, incessantly a boy, nothing but a boy, who has the characteristics of children in general. Confronted with any kind of circumstances, Tom responds by making a game of it, by relying on his reading, by posing or acting out a part. 2． Tom’s Boyish Fashion of Doing Things Monday morning， Tom Sawyer was in low spirits because another week’s suffering in school comes. Tom tries to detect some symptoms in his system so that he can stay home from school. ... Tom expects Sid, his younger brother, who sleeps beside his, to wake up and run to tell Aunt Polly about his symptoms. But no matter how Tom groans, no result comes from Sid. “Tom was aggravated. ... ” But when Sid wakes up and stares at him, Tom pretends to let Sid leave him alone. ... And Sid, you give my window-sash and my cat with one eye to that new girl that’s come to town, and tell her--” Sid becomes so frightened that he flies downstairs to tell Aunt Polly that Tom is dying. This is Tom’s painstakingly plotting fraud which makes Sid believe him, but cannot deceive Aunt Polly. ... It ends with Tom’s loose tooth pulled out and he still has to go to school. From the above episode we find that Tom is a resourceful child without losing his naivete and innocence in childhood. ... And he reflects it through the hero, Tom Sawyer. There is a vivid description about Tom’s love complication for Becky. Once Tom sees a new girl “with furtive eye” in Jeff Thatcher’s garden, he “feel in love with her” immediately. ... When he sees the girl wending her way toward the house, “Tom came up to the fence and learned on it, grieving, and hoping she would tarry yet a while longer”. ... ” Before Tom “worshiped this new angel with furtive eye”, he had been the happiest and the proudest boy in the world only seven short days, and in one instant of time she had gone out of his heart like a casual stranger shoes visit is done. This is the beginning of Tom’s love story with his childish fickle desertion of his fiancée, Amy Lawrence. ... ” But the so-called love cannot go beyond the limit if immaturity of Tom’s age. ... Mark Twain grasps the children’s psychology and writes about Tom’s love-affair that is only boy’s love-affair. ... If we consider the whole story comprises four lines of action—the story of “Tom and Becky”, the story of “Tom and Muff Potter”, the “Jackson’s Island” episode and the series of happenings (which might be called the Injun Joe story) leading to the discovery of the treasure, each one of these is initiated by a characteristic and typically boyish action. The love story begins with Tom’s childishly fickle desertion of Amy, the Potter narrative with the superstitious trip to the graveyard, Jackson’s Island episode with the adolescent revolt of the boy against Aunt Polly, and Injun Joe story with the juvenile search for buried treasure. During his reading, a younger reader shares the experience of Tom Sawyer. ... 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. ... 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.