Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in 1876. The novel was Clemens’s sixth book, but only his second novel: Clemens’s earlier books were two collections of stories and sketches and two travel books, Innocents Abroad (1869) and Roughing It (1872); his first novel, The Gilded Age (1873), was written with Charles Dudley Warner, Clemens’s Hartford neighbor. Tom Sawyer marks Clemens’s first extended creative use of his memories of his childhood in Hannibal, Missouri.

In the preface to the novel, Clemens wrote, “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 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.” The novel is still popular with both children and adults. Though it is often considered to be children’s literature, there is an undercurrent of satire in the story that is often unrecognized. The novel is also among those most often banned by school libraries in the United States.

A case may be made that Clemens uses the novel to explore themes he introduced in earlier sketches, especially “The Christmas Fireside for Good Little Boys and Girls” (1865), “The Story of the Good Little Boy Who Did Not Prosper” (1870), and “Poor Little Stephen Girard” (1873), all of which offer tales in which allegiance to social expectations is punished and immorality is rewarded. Clemens’s Tom, like the bad boys that populate the typical Sunday school fictions of the 1870s, is notorious for seeming to challenge community/adult moral expectations.

The novel records the summer escapades of Tom Sawyer and his two friends, Joe Harper and Huckleberry Finn. Pivotal events include the murder of Dr. Robinson by Injun Joe, the trial of Muff Potter for that murder, and a search for buried treasure. Companion plot lines focus on Tom’s home life under the watchful eye of his Aunt Polly, the sister of his dead mother, which includes the episode of Tom’s hoodwinking local boys into whitewashing Aunt Polly’s fence as well as Tom’s transgressions at school; the boys’ adventure on Jackson’s Island, which results in the town’s belief that the boys have been drowned, and the boys’ return to interrupt their own funerals; and Tom’s courtship of Becky Thatcher and his rescuing Becky after they are lost in a cave during an outing.

Perhaps most important of these is the exploration of Tom’s relationship with Huck Finn, the outcast son of St. Petersburgh’s town drunk, which both introduces Huck into the pantheon of Clemens’s primary characters and sets the stage for the sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885).

Mark Twain

The novel is episodic. The story opens with an exchange between Tom and another boy from the town that establishes Tom’s standing within the children’s community. Tom’s attentions are diverted to the newly arrived Becky Thatcher and the need to capture her attention and affection. What follows is a twisting tale that allows Clemens to use the children’s escapades to mark the economic, ethnic, and social tensions present in adult society. Clemens very astutely uses the children’s world to mirror adult society: like the adults, the children are concerned with class markers, set by categories of economic status and levels of literacy. Tom occupies the most prominent spot in the children’s hierarchy: his ability to gain material wealth in the fence-painting episode is reminiscent of an adult financial con game, and his ability to read and recall the plotlines of romantic stories allows him to keep an upper hand in his games with Joe Harper and sets the stage for his friendly dominance over an illiterate Huck Finn.

What at first seems to be a celebration of Tom’s rebellious streak is, by the novel’s conclusion, a more ambivalent description of a boy’s full induction into an adult world that prizes careful attention to social conformity. Tom is no rebel. He is mischievous, but he is also clearly committed to the overarching moral standards the town and the adult world use to gauge success. In the course of the novel, he steps up to identify Injun Joe as the real murderer of Dr. Robinson. This frees Muff Potter and makes Tom a hero in the town. But his fame depends on betraying his oath to Huckleberry Finn to protect their secret.

The various acts that call attention to the foolishness of school or the paucity of church services do not undermine the basic authority of the adult world; instead, Tom is complicit in the work of reinforcing the town’s moral standards. At the end of the novel, he is rewarded for his actions to protect Becky when Judge Thatcher assures him of a position at a military academy and at law school. What better avenue toward power within the adult world!

Most astounding is Tom’s treatment of Huckleberry Finn. At the close of the novel, Huck, who has shown his own heroism by saving the Widow Douglas from the wrath of Injun Joe, has run away from the Widow’s home because of her attempts to civilize him. Tom is sent after Huck. Rather than support Huck in his quest for freedom, Tom threatens Huck with exile if he does not return to the Widow’s home.

While it is possible to read Tom’s actions as motivated by his concern for Huck’s welfare, the way Tom threatens and intimidates Huck demonstrates that he has learned adult lessons. He is more interested in forcing Huck to conform to adult society than he is in listening to the worries and concerns of a friend. Clemens, in the end, presents Tom as the bad boy who prospers by being complicit in a system that forces conformity: the adventures of Tom Sawyer are fully endorsed by the community; the boy becomes a full participant in the adult world.

Analysis of Mark Twain’s Novels

Sources
Emerson, Everett. Mark Twain: A Literary Life. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.
Scharnhorst, Gary. Critical Essays on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Boston: G. K. Hall & Company, 1992.
Twain, Mark. Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays, 1852–1890. Edited by Louis J. Budd. New York: Library of America, 1992.

Categories: Literature, Novel Analysis

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