A Theme Of Childhood And Growing Up In The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer
Through this book, the reader gets to see Tom Sawyer’s journey to maturity. The theme of this book is the course through childhood and growing up. At the beginning of the book, Tom steals, lies, and cheats. As time goes on, it is easier to see his good heart and good intentions. MR. BLANK said, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ” This quote is portrayed as the book goes, on he matures by the end and is different than he was at the very beginning.
In the beginning, Tom is a mischevious boy who regularly gets into trouble. In the first chapter, his Aunt Polly finds him in the closet, with his hands full of jam. To escape the consequences of his actions, he yells to Aunt Polly, “Look behind you!” and he ran out. His troublemaking path arises when he skips school to go swimming, and he gets his clothes dirty by getting in a fight with a boy who he lied to about having a brother. As a punishment, he must whitewash the fence, which he gets out of by telling other boys that it is a privilege to whitewash the fence. Because the fence was all done, Aunt Polly allows for Tom to go out in the late afternoon, when he comes back he sees a beautiful girl. Tom tries to “show off” to her and the girl throws him flowers. Later, his half brother breaks the sugar bowl which he gets blamed for. This is the start of the road for maturity because for once, he wasn’t the one who caused the trouble.
He goes to the Thatcher’s home and under the willow tree, he gets water dumped on his head. At Sunday school, he trades his treasures collected from the whitewashing incident for tickets to earn a Bible. But, he becomes embarrassed when he says that the first two disciples were David and Goliath. Tom falls in love with Becky Thatcher, the beautiful girl he saw coming home for dinner, and they get “engaged. ” Becky becomes upset when she learns Tom has already been “engaged” before. He begins to deal with real life situations when he becomes interested in a girl and he learns that you can’t break her heart.
After the catastrophe with Becky, he goes with Huckleberry Finn on an adventure to find the cure for warts. Huck takes him to the graveyard, and there, they witness the murder of Dr. Robinson by Injun Joe, who is a Native American. Being frightened. Tom and Huckleberry run away and make a vow to not to tell anyone what they have seen. Injun Joe blames Muff Potter for the murder, and Mr. Potter is arrested. This shows that bad things happen if good people do nothing. The boys knew who murdered Dr. Robinson, but said nothing, therefore, Muff Potter was blamed and arrested for something that he didn’t do.
In the next few chapters, Tom goes on an adventure with his pals to an island to play pirates. While there, he gets the feeling that he should go back home because he feels guilty about leaving his Aunt Polly. This shows a step of maturity because he cares what his aunt is feeling and he makes the effort to go back home and deliver the message written on the piece of bark back to her. “SO ENDETH this chronicle. It being strictly a history of a boy, it must stop here; the story could not go much further without becoming the history of a man. ” This quote shows and relates to Tom Sawyer because he has matured, and is turning into a man. When they come back from their adventure, they hear the community sounding the river for someone who drowned. Tom found out that the community was making a tribute to them.
