-
Essay / Coming of age in Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"
In his novel, Mark Twain shows how this young boy named Tom acts as he progresses through his childhood. He lives with an aunt named Aunt Polly who is a very strict person. When Tom does things he shouldn't do, she punishes him. Even though he knows he's wrong and shouldn't steal, he does it anyway. He knows what not to do because they are also religious. They go to church almost every Sunday but Tom hates it and thinks the sermons are boring. After a while, adulthood starts to come and he starts to calm down and he doesn't do the things he used to do. He starts to realize different things and he starts to become a different Tom. The other Tom is better because he obeys, he stopped stealing, he wasn't as lazy as before so the other Tom was a better Tom. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain shows the coming of age and how the typical American boy progressed throughout his childhood. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom shows how some young children like him are very rebellious and disobedient. Early in the novel, Tom is stealing jam from the pantry when his Aunt Polly finds him. When Aunt Polly finds him before she can do anything, he tricks her into turning the other way, and when she turns the other way, he jumps over the fence and short before being punished. In another incident, his Aunt Polly asks Tom questions because she feels like he didn't go to school that day, but she doesn't know that while she asks him questions, he steals sugar. His brother Sid sees him stealing sugar and reports him, but Tom is quick enough to leave the house before being punished again. As he was leaving the house he saw this boy on the street, so Tom decided to start arguing with this boy, then they started fighting over nothing. When he decided to go to his favorite house and water was poured on him, he threw a stone at the window, broke it and sneaked into the house. Some children change their attitude if they go to church or if they have a role model in their life. Tom goes to church and Sunday school, but he thinks it's very boring and really doesn't pay attention to what Mr. Walters says. In the story, Aunt Polly demonstrates how she disciplines rebellious and disobedient children like Tom. When he did bad things, she would sometimes make him do housework or what she thought would be a good punishment for him. At the beginning of the story, Tom was stealing jam and she tried to beat him, but he tricked her into not beating him. She tries to give him other types of punishments instead of beating him all the time. Tom was stealing sugar from the table and left the house before being punished, so when he tried to sneak back to his Aunt Polly's house, he told her to whitewash the fence. When Sid tried to steal sugar, Aunt Polly blamed Tom and beat him even though he didn't do it. This really hurt Tom because he was blamed for something he didn't even do. And she didn't even apologize to him after finding out Sid did it. After this happens, Tom feels very sad and wonders what she would do and say to him if he were to just die. Tom said, “How she would throw herself at him, and how her tears would fall like rain, and her lips would pray to God to give her back her boy and she would never abuse him again”! After a while, she began to relax in her manner ofdiscipline. Once he goes on this pirate adventure with his friends and he doesn't tell her anything and they thought they were dead, she starts to realize that she shouldn't have. treat as she did. Aunt Polly said: “He wasn't bad, just mischievous, so to speak. Just dizziness, and harum scarum, you know. He was no more responsible than a colt. He never meant any harm and he was the warmest boy who ever lived.” When she found out about Tom's trick, she thought it was cool, but she was also disappointed because he didn't tell her it was just fun and games. Aunt Polly got angry because she was made stupid because Joe Harper had already told her mother about Tom's trick. Even when Tom said he didn't think they knew, Aunt Polly couldn't believe him because she couldn't trust him anymore even if she tried. At the end of the novel, Tom begins to grow up. He is no longer the same boy as at the beginning of the novel. Although he still plays a lot and has childish ways, he has stopped doing certain things for the better. He wasn't the same Tom who didn't do his chores, or the one who stole things, or the one who was lazy, he was a more mature Tom. The adult in Tom came out when he returned to Aunt Polly's house and considered leaving her a note to tell her he was okay even though he hadn't. Tom even stopped stealing because at first he always felt like he had to steal things. For example, he had stolen sugar from the dinner table and also jam from the pantry and always got caught. When he went on pirate adventures with his friends, they stole a lot of different things. When Tom and his friends first met, they had each stolen supplies such as boiled ham, some trifles, a frying pan, half-cured leaf tobacco, and other supplies. They even stole a raft just so they could go on the trip they were destined for. They even pretended to be Indians and decided to smoke pipes. Before going to sleep, they prayed and were afraid that lightning would fall on them because of all the bad things they were doing. When they prayed, they promised never to fly as pirates again because they knew what they were doing was very wrong and the Bible did not command it. This is the beginning of why Tom stopped stealing because they promised not to steal as pirates. Once you get into the habit of doing something, you keep doing the same thing over and over again, so if he didn't fly for a long time, the result after the adventure would probably be that he didn't fly more. He began to mature into adulthood and grow up when he witnessed the murder of Dr. Robinson. Tom found himself in a situation that he really didn't understand as a boy, but he understands when he begins to mature. With all the lies he ever told, once he reached the maturity stage everything changed, he couldn't keep silent about the murder and he told the truth about everything. He no longer thought of himself and he did what was right, so when the widow needed to be saved, he goes to help save the widow. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized paper now from our expert writers. Get Custom EssayTom is really a good example for people like him who starts out quite difficult but starts to see things differently. Some kids are "bad", but all you need is something to change your life or someone to come into your life and teach you certain things that others don't..