The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - A Review

I was originally planning to read The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn over winter break (thank you Mateo for the recommendation!), but after re-reading Mateo’s excellent blog I realized I should read Tom Sawyer first, just for a little background.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is about a young boy named… Tom Sawyer (no way!). He lives with his Aunt Polly and half-brother Sid. Which is unfortunate for Aunt Polly – Tom is probably the most troublesome, self-centered, albeit clever and somewhat kind boy in the neighborhood. For instance, Tom, bored to death when Aunt Polly makes him whitewash a fence, uses reverse psychology to convince his friends that whitewashing is actually really fun, and he tricks his friends into giving him small treasures in exchange for a turn painting the fence. Tom then trades these treasures with other boys for church tickets (earned by memorizing verses of the Bible), and cheerfully exchanges his tickets for a Bible as a prize (which requires 2000 memorized verses). Alas, karma strikes when Tom is asked to name the first two disciples of Jesus: he responds, ““DAVID AND GOLIATH!””

One of Tom’s best friends is Huckelberry Finn. In the middle of the night one day, Tom and Huck sneak out, and bring a dead cat to a graveyard. It’s common knowledge that bringing a dead cat to a graveyard causes a devil to show up, and saying ““Devil follow corpse, cat follow devil, warts follow cat, I’m done with ye!””, gets rid of any wart. But instead, Tom and Huck accidentally see the “murderin’ half-breed” Injun Joe (The word “Injun” is a racist term for an American Indian. I don’t know if I’m supposed to censor it or not) brutally stab some guy to death and guilt-trip his white friend, Muff Potter, into thinking that HE was drunk and murdered a man.

Tom and Huck run away and resolve to never speak of this murder, causing Potter to get wrongfully arrested (which is funny since he genuinely thinks he’s guilty). Tom & co. suddenly decide that no one loves them and society is bad, so they disappear from civilization to go camping on a nearby island for a few days. Eventually, they become tired from being tired of society and crash their own funeral, becoming the subjects of admiration of all their friends (and Tom also manages to win back his crush’s heart). So life’s fairly good, but Injun Joe is still hovering around somewhere, Potter is almost certainly about to be hung, and Tom and Huck are the only ones who know the truth…

This novel would have been much more relatable had I read it a few years back – like when I was 9 or 10 (Tom Sawyer is much, much easier to read than The Scarlet Letter, for instance). I would have probably been drawn towards Tom and Huck’s games and antics – running away from school, doing questionable things in the middle of the night, trying cigarettes for the first time because it looks cool – but now as I read this book, these things seem a bit silly. For some, these things might be nostalgic for their childhood, but I have never done (and probably will never do) any of these things, mostly because they’re illegal. Not to say that Tom Sawyer is a bad book – although it probably wasn’t the best fit for me, it was nonetheless a refreshing, lighthearted read. I found many things quite funny: like how Tom constantly imagines himself dying “temporarily” and convinces himself that he’s a good person when he visualizes how many people would mourn him.

(Also, I will mention that there is some casual racism thrown around, such as the N-word, so be warned if you ever read this novel. Which you should definitely do: Tom Sawyer is a wonderful book overall!)

- Anthony