The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“He was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy very well though

—and loathed him” (13).

Original Illustrations: True Williams

Illustrations: Norman Rockwell (1936)

Personal Context: Boyhood in Missouri

Mark Twain (pen name for Samuel Clemens) wrote: “I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write it so that it will not only interest boys but will also strongly interest any man who has ever been a boy.”

NostalgiaSemi-autobiographical, a fictional representation of

Twains’ home town of Hannibal, Missouri. Hannibal is still known as “America’s hometown” due to its connection to Tom Sawyer and Mark Twain’s boyhood.

From Mark Twain’s Letters, ed. Albert Bigelow Paine (1917)

Personal Context: Boyhood in Missouri

Mark Twain’s 1876 Preface: “Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual—he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture.The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children and slaves in the West at the period of this story—that is to say, thirty or forty years ago.Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in.”

Literary Context: Bad Boy Books• Late 19th century genre• Challenged the overly moral and unrealistic portrayals

of children in religious stories and other popular fiction.

The Story of a Bad Boy, Aldrich (1869)

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain

(1876)

Being a Boy, Warner (1890)

Bad boy books exist alongside girls’ sentimental fiction during the

Golden AgeTom Sawyer, 1876 What Katy Did, 1872

Bad Boy Books vs. Girls’ Sentimental Fiction

“In place of the selfless, other-oriented feminine protagonist of women’s [and girls’] sentimental fiction, Twain’s book asks its readers to identify with an aggressive, selfish, even self-absorbed boy. Like other protagonists of ‘bad-boy books,’ Tom tends toward the mischievous and mildly sadistic pranks now conventionally attributed to boys; he certainly isn’t primarily motivated by the sentimental desire to ease the pain of others.”

From Glenn Hendler’s “Masculinity and the Logic of Sympathy in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” in Norton critical edition of Tom Sawyer.

Intertextual Conversations: Didacticism

Katy’s lesson about the nail“Did you ever hear the old saying about ‘For the want of a nail the shoe was lost’?...For the want of a nail the shoe was lost, for the want of a shoe the horse was lost, for the want of a horse the rider was lost, for the want of the rider the battle was lost, for the want of the battle the kingdom was lost, and all for the want of a horse-shoe nail.’ ‘Oh, Papa!’ exclaimed Katy, giving him a great hug as she got off his knee, ‘I see what you mean! Who would have thought such a little speck of a thing as not sewing on my string could make a difference? But I don’t believe I shall get in any more scrapes, for I shan’t ever forget: ‘for the want of a nail the shoe was lost’” (36-37).

Tom’s ‘lesson’ about whitewashing

Aunt Polly “took him into the closet and selected a choice apple and delivered it to him, along with an improving lecture upon the added value and flavor a treat took to itself when it came without sin through virtuous effort. And while she closed with a happy Scriptural flourish, he ‘hooked’ a doughnut” (22).

Intertextual Conversations: Self and Others

Cousin Helen and Katy

“I began to think how selfishly I was behaving, and to desire to do better. And after that, when the pain came on, I used to lie and keep my forehead smooth with my fingers, and try not to let my face show what I was enduring…It was a great deal of trouble at first to have to think and plan to keep my room and myself looking nice. But…the pleasure it gave my dear father repaid for all. He had been proud of his active, healthy girl, but I think she was never such a comfort to him as his sick one lying there in bed” (138).

Tom, Joe, and Huck

“Here was a gorgeous triumph; they were missed; they were mourned; hearts were breaking on their account; tears were being shed, accusing memories of unkindnesses to these poor lost lads were rising up…and best of all, the departed were the talk of the whole town...They were jubilant with vanity over their new grandeur and the illustrious trouble they were making” (80-81).

Intertextual Conversations: Self and Others

Katy’s lesson about interacting with people

“Yes—Aunt Izzie is a thing—and she has a nice pleasant handle too, if you just try to find it. And the children are ‘things’ also, in one sense. All their handles are different…We have to feel and guess before we can make out just how other people go, and how we ought to take hold of them. It is very interesting—I advise you to try it. And while you are trying you will learn all sorts of things which will help you to help others” (134-135).

Tom’s lesson about interacting with people

“He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain” (20-21).

Intertextual Conversations: Forgetfulness

Narrator’s remarks about Katy’s forgetfulness

“I don’t believe I shall get in any more scrapes, for I shan’t ever forget: ‘For the want of a nail the shoe was lost.’ But I am sorry to say that my poor, thoughtless Katy did forget, and did get into another scrape, and that no later than the very next Monday.”

Narrator’s remarks about Tom’s forgetfulness

“Within two minutes, or even less, he had forgotten all his troubles. Not because his troubles were one whit less heavy and bitter to him than a man’s are to a man, but because a new and powerful interest bore them down and drove them out of his mind for the time—just as men’s misfortunes are forgotten in the excitement of new enterprises”

Historical Context: Slavery

The Missouri that Twain lived in as a child was a slave-owning society. Slavery was woven into the attitudes, institutions, and culture of his community, and was not publically questioned.

Where does the issue of slavery appear in Tom Sawyer?

Resource on the presence of slavery in Twains’ works: http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/wilson/slavery/mtslavhp.html

Historical Context: Slavery

• Preface: “The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children and slaves in the West at the period of this story—that is to say, thirty or forty years ago.”

• One of Twain’s footnotes explains the name “Bull Harbison” as follows: “If Mr. Harbison had owned a slave named Bull, Tom would have spoken of him as ‘Harbison’s Bull,’ but a son or a dog of that name was ‘Bull Harbison.’”

Historical Context: “Injun Joe”“‘half-breed would have implied, in that time and pace: not only the bastard son of white father and Indian woman, but likely of an Indian woman used as prostitute. ‘Half-breed’ carried not only racist but legal, moral, social, and religious sting; half-breeds were not only ‘naturally’ apt to be of poor character by being products of miscegenation, but apt to be really bad people because they were children of society’s ‘dregs.’”

From Carter Revard’s “Why Mark Twain Murdered Injun Joe,” Massachusetts Review 40.4 (1999).

Historical Context: “Injun Joe”

Injun Joe’s own racial assumptions:“‘Five year ago you drove me away from your father’s kitchen one night, and when I come to ask for something to eat, and you said I warn’t there for any good; and when I swore I’d get even with you if it took a hundred years, your father had me jailed for a vagrant. Did you think I’d forget? The Injun blood ain’t in me for nothing. And now I’ve got you and you got to settle, you know!’” (57).