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.”

The Model Boy is Willie Mufferson, a do-gooder whom all the boys in town hate. Willie is so good that he makes them look even worse. Willie is always well-dressed, considerate, and clean, and he represents everything that Tom and his friends resist. Tom loathes the boy that every parent in St. Petersburg hopes their sons will emulate.

“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.”

Tom learns a lesson about human nature and the power of incentives. Manufactured scarcity is what lets him collect treasures from the other boys while they do his whitewashing. Using reverse psychology, Tom pretends that whitewashing is a joy because it is a rare task. He has only to plant the idea that the others are missing out on a privilege to get them to do his work for him.

“The choir always tittered and whispered all through service. There was once a church choir that was not ill-bred, but I have forgotten where it was, now. It was a great many years ago, and I can scarcely remember anything about it, but I think it was in some foreign country.”

Twain enters the text to comment on his experience with choirs. Whenever these authorial intrusions occur, it is generally when Twain wishes to comment on (or mock) something about society that annoys or amuses him. He also comments whenever his observations require more life experience than would be credible if coming from Tom.

“Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.”

After the sermon, the minister recites a lengthy list of bulletins, meetings, and other announcements. Tom doesn’t understand why the announcements can’t be in a newspaper. This is a classic example of Twain’s humor, combined with provocative ideas. There are plenty of bad ideas that deserve obsolescence but linger simply because no one thinks to end them.

“It seemed to him that life was but a trouble, at best, and he more than half envied Jimmy Hodges, so lately released; it must be very peaceful, he thought, to lie and slumber and dream forever and ever, with the wind whispering through the trees and caressing the grave and the flowers over the grave, and nothing to bother and grieve about, ever any more.”

After Tom’s clumsy engagement proposal to Becky, he wistfully envies a person who has died recently and how peaceful it must be to rest among nature, free from feelings or trouble. This highlights Tom’s tendency toward dramatic melancholy. He treats every inconvenience and slight as if he can scarcely survive the pain. He longs for eternal rest when he already has a peaceful, adventurous life.

“They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than President of the United States forever.”

When Tom and Joe play Robin Hood and Guy of Guisborne, they are pretending to be criminals. The criminals aren’t burdened by the responsibilities of families, civics, or the administration of companies or homes. They may not have as much power as the president would, but a year of their exhilarating existence is preferable to what the boys picture as the ultimate mundanity of governing.

“Aunt Polly felt a sudden pang of remorse. This was putting the thing in a new light; what was cruelty to a cat might be cruelty to a boy, too. She began to soften; she felt sorry.”

After Tom admits that he gave Polly’s cat, Peter, the Painkiller, Aunt Polly has a new perspective. It made the cat misbehave and sent him into a frenzy. Now she sees that it may have had the same effect on Tom. In terms of treatment, she had viewed the boy and the cat as being in different categories entirely.

“Oh, they just have a bully time—take ships, and burn them, and get the money and bury it in awful places in their island where there’s ghosts and things to watch, it, and kill everybody in the ships—make ‘em walk a plank. they don’t kill the women—they’re too noble. And the women’s always beautiful, too.”

Tom describes the joys of being a pirate. However, aside from a couple of scuffles with boys, Tom does not show any truly violent tendencies. The fact that he gleefully anticipates burning ships and killing enemies is complete bluster. His flights of fancy often involve the idea of women who worship uncouth, dangerous men.

“There was no getting around the stubborn fact that taking sweetmeats was only ‘hooking,’ while taking bacon and hams and such valuables was plain simple stealing—and there was a command against that in the Bible. So they inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in the business, their piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing.”

Even though they are pirates, the boys agree that they will try not to break the Bible’s commandments. They will engage in anything the Bible does not explicitly forbid, but they will have to be pirates who are not thieves. This contradicts Tom’s later desire to become a robber and lead a gang of thieves, but he never notices the hypocrisy.

“The other boys agreed that there was sense in what Tom said, because an ignorant lump of bread, uninstructed by an incantation, could not be expected to act very intelligently when sent upon an errand of such gravity.”

Huck details that one way of locating a drowned body is to put quicksilver in bread. Then, the bread settles in the water over a body. Tom explains that the words that are chanted over the bread make the difference. This is a gentle dig on Twain’s part at the religious ordinance of the sacrament, which transmutes the bread into the body of Christ.

“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 unavailing regrets and remorse were being indulged: and best of all, the departed were the talk of the whole town, and the envy of all the boys, as far as this dazzling notoriety was concerned. This was fine. It was worth being a pirate, after all.”

When Tom realizes that the cannon is sounding the water for their bodies, he is thrilled. He knows that they are the subject of all conversation in St. Petersburg. Tom doesn’t care about the source of his notoriety, as long as he can be notorious. He loves the thought that people are weeping over the loss of his life, which only makes him feel even more important.

“As the service proceeded, the clergyman drew such pictures of the graces, the winning ways, and the rare promise of the lost lads, that every soul there, thinking he recognized these pictures, felt a pang in remembering that he had persistently blinded himself to them always before, and had as persistently seen only faults and flaws in the poor boys.”

At the boys’ funeral, the sermon paints an unrecognizable picture of the lost boys. However, because they are mourning, everyone ignores this fact. Indeed, they chastise themselves for being too harsh on Joe Harper, Huck, and Tom, whom they would now love to ask for forgiveness. The mourners realize they had been uncharitable—if only to the boys who have allowed their loved ones to believe them dead.

“What a hero Tom was become now! He did not go skipping and prancing, but moved with a dignified swagger, as became a pirate who felt that the public eye was on him. And indeed it was; he tried not to seem to see the looks or hear the remarks as he passed along, but they were food and drink to him.”

After Tom returns from Jackson Island, his status is inflated. Younger boys now worship him, and older boys are jealous of his audacity. They have no way to compete with his fame since they have never come back from the dead. Tom tries to retain his aloof modesty, but he soon succumbs to his usual arrogance.

“When he stepped forward to go to his punishment the surprise, the gratitude, the adoration that shone to him out of poor Becky’s eyes seemed pay enough for a hundred floggings.”

Tom accepts Becky’s punishment for the torn page in the anatomy book. He is accustomed to public punishment, unlike Becky, who is terrified of disgrace. His anger at her vanishes. Tom is fueled by adoration and attention, and even more so when they come from Becky. In fact, he is shocked that she was so terrified of being punished, knowing that it often leads to respect and notoriety.

“Homely truth is unpalatable.”

Twain enters the text again to observe that girls who recite in church are often moved to include sermons in their remarks. He says that the least religious girl is usually the most publicly pious and goes to the greatest lengths to talk about righteousness. However, as a lover of tall tales and ribald humor, Twain understands that stark, concise truths are often less entertaining and useful than artistic rhetoric.

“Now he found out a new thing—namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.”

When Tom joins the Cadets of Temperance, he gives up smoking, chewing, and profanity. He is immediately beset by the urge to do everything he has pledged against. It is only the red sash decoration and the thought of wearing it on the Fourth of July that maintains his abstinence. 

“It might have seemed to him a waste of pomp and ammunition to kill a bug with a battery of artillery, but there seemed nothing incongruous about the getting up such an expensive thunderstorm as this to knock the turf from under an insect like himself.”

After Tom recovers from the measles, everything seems dull, and the people are all newly religious. He blames himself for a thunderstorm. The murder—and his secret—have angered God, but he still thinks the storm is an excessive signal. He compares himself to an insect because of his shame.

“Huck was always willing to take a hand in any enterprise that offered entertainment and required no capital, for he had a troublesome super-abundance of that sort of time which is not money.”

Huck has nothing but time. He can do whatever he pleases, which makes him the envy of Tom and the other boys in St. Petersburg. He is content to participate in anything that amuses him. However, he is not exactly lazy—he just doesn’t want to do anything out of coercion. Huck is brave and loyal, but his priorities are to be happy and to help others when asked.

“Don’t you ever weaken, Huck, and I won’t.”

As Tom and Huck prepare for the most dangerous part of their plan, they are frightened but determined. Tom and Huck are stronger together than they are apart. Tom knows that it will take both of them to succeed, but he believes they can keep each other safe if they protect and trust each other.

“The sure fun of the evening outweighed the uncertain treasure; and boylike, he determined to yield to the stronger inclination and not allow himself to think of the box of money another time that day.”

Tom convinces Becky to go to Widow Douglas’s, even though he knows he might miss Huck’s signal. Tom is in a dangerous situation, but he is still human enough—and child enough—to choose instant gratification over future security. Becky is enough of a reward for one day.

“Kill? Who said anything about killing? I would kill him if he were here; but not her. When you want to get revenge on a woman you don’t kill her—bosh! You go for her looks. You slit her nostrils—you notch her ears like a sow!”

Huck overhears Injun Joe describing his plans for the Widow Douglas. Joe is not the only dangerous person in the novel, but he is the most overtly cruel. He takes sadistic delight in vengeance and violence. He wants the widow to suffer more than he wants her to die, which is part of what gives Huck the courage to intervene.

“She said she would do her best by him, because, whether he was good, bad, or indifferent, he was the Lord’s, and nothing that was the Lord’s was a thing to be neglected.”

While the physicians help search the cave for Becky and Tom, the Widow Douglas takes care of Huck. She doesn’t know that he is the one who saved her from Injun Joe. She believes him to be one of God’s creatures, just like she is, and will care for him as she would care for anyone else. The widow’s faith is not played for laughs, or as an example of comical hypocrisy, like the faith of other characters.

“Huck Finn’s wealth and the fact that he was now under the Widow Douglas’s protection introduced him into society—no, dragged him into it, hurled him into it—and his sufferings were almost more than he could bear. The widow’s servants kept him clean and neat, combed and brushed... He had to eat with knife and fork; he had to use napkin, cup, and plate; he had to learn his book, he had to go to church; he had to talk so properly that speech was become insipid in his mouth; whithersoever he turned, the bars and shackles of civilization shut him in and bound him hand and foot.”

Huck is flattered by the widow’s desire to care for him, but her insistence on regimented self-improvement is suffocating. He doesn’t want to cultivate manners, he doesn’t want to answer to other people, and he doesn’t want to have to meet other people’s standards. He finds the luxuries of civilized society to be more confining than freeing.