Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer

"There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable." (Mark Twain)

 

   The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a book by Mark Twain written in 1875 about a boy who loves to do what he is told not to do.   That naturally makes him a trouble maker who is always getting punished.  Once he was told to paint a big fence and, using trickery, got his friends to do it for him.  Tom's best friend is an outcast who has no parents and doesn't follow any rules.  He is named Huckleberry Finn.  All the kids' parents forbid their children to play with him. This made Tom want to play with him every chance he got.  Tom's life was all about having fun until one of his adventures gave him an unexpected surprise.  

   One night Tom and Huck went to the graveyard to test a superstition that if you throw a dead cat into the graveyard at midnight, the devil will take it and the cat will take away your warts.  When they entered the graveyard, they saw three men digging up a grave -- a doctor, Injun Joe, and Muff Potter.  Injun Joe demanded more pay than he was getting for digging the grave.  The doctor refused and started to fight Injun Joe in protest.  The doctor accidentally knocked out Muff Potter in the struggle.  Injun Joe then took Potter's knife and stabbed the doctor, killing him while Potter was unconscious.

   From this point onward, Tom begins to make a number of grown-up decisions.  When Muff Potter is tried for the doctor's murder, Tom speaks up and says that Injun Joe stabbed the doctor.  Tom and Huck had sworn not to tell anyone what they had seen, but Tom broke that oath to keep innocent Muff Potter out of jail.  Right after Tom spoke out in court, Injun Joe fled from town.

   Tom soon returned to being his crazy boy self, even though he he feared Injun Joe would kill him for testifying in court.  Tom decided to go looking for treasure one day in a haunted house near his town.  He and Huck went to the house and left their tools by the door while they went upstairs to explore.   They had just reached the second floor when Injun Joe entered the house with a bag of money.  As he started to bury it, there was a ping, and Joe picked up a chest of gold he had uncovered.  Joe decided to take the money and the gold to a new location because he felt like someone was watching him. 

   Tom eventually found the location of the hidden treasure during a horrible accident in which he and his friend Becky Thatcher got lost in a cave.  Even though Tom was experiencing this terrible situation, he was determined to find a way out of the cave.  As he looked for exits, he was surprised to see Injun Joe hiding out in one of the tunnels.  Thankfully Joe didn't recognize him and Tom slowly backed away.  After he and Becky escaped, Tom came back to the cave with Huck.  Together they went to where Tom saw Injun Joe.  There they found the treasure stashed in a secret tunnel.

   When Tom and Huck get rich at the end of the book, people's opinions about the boys change.  They began to admire and revere the boys.  Almost everything Tom and Huck did seemed important.  Eventually everybody in their town and in neighboring towns knew who the boys were.  Huck was expected to act like other people now.  He went to live with the Widow Douglas and had to live under her roof.   He didn't like being rich because now he couldn't smoke, cuss, skip school, or get dirty.  He felt like his freedom was being taken away.

   What I enjoyed about the book Tom Sawyer is that even though it was written 136 years ago, it had me laughing like crazy!  The book sounded like it actually could have happened.  I found it interesting how Tom developed his moral conscience throughout the book.  Moral conscience is your inner voice that tells you right from wrong.  The right choice is not always easy, like testifying in court or finding your way out of a cave.  Boys will be boys, but eventually we all have to make good decisions that show who we really are.  I can't wait to read our next Mark Twain book:  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn!