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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The mischievous Tom Sawyer is extremely clever. Here are three instances of his cleverness and ingenuity in tricking others: In Chapter 2, Tom is made to whitewash the fence. As he looks over the...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The opening of the story tells us that Tom Sawyer is a bit of a troublemaker. We can reasonably infer this because, in this scene, the young lad is hiding from his Aunt Polly in a closet with jam...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
For Tom Sawyer, the difference between work and play is simple: play is fun, and work isn't. Tom is about as work-shy as it gets, whether it's in relation to school-work or chores around the house....
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Some of Tom Sawyer's negative traits are his mischievousness, ability to manipulate others, and his selfishness. For example, in the famous whitewashing scene, Tom manipulates the other boys into...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
There are are a number of themes present in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. If you need to focus on just one main theme, I would suggest examining the idea of the unbridled joys and innocence of...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
In Chapter 2 of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (entitled "Strong Temptations"), Tom is living with his Aunt Polly in a town in Missouri. His aunt assigns Tom the task of whitewashing the fence for...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Aunt Polly punishes Tom by making him whitewash a picket fence that runs next to the sidewalk. It's a beautiful Saturday morning, and Tom longs to be out having fun, as he had planned to do on his...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Sneaking out at night to the graveyard, Tom and Huck Finn are horrified when they witness Injun Joe murder Dr. Robinson. Muff Potter is also there, and Injun Joe uses Potter's knife to commit the...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom Sawyer is the main character in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and his goals shift throughout the book. The difficulty of answering this question is that Tom Sawyer has no over-arching...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
In chapter 6 of Tom Sawyer, the titular Tom comes across the town ne’er-do-well, Huckleberry Finn. Huck is carrying a dead cat with him on the way to the graveyard. The superstition is that dead...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom is a challenge for cousin Mary to get ready for Sunday School, but she rises to it. First, he hasn't memorized his Bible verse from the Sermon on the Mount. Mary says she will have a nice...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Aunt Polly punishes Tom by forcing him to whitewash a fence on a Saturday morning when he had planned to have fun. He is feeling hopeless and despondent. He thinks sorrowfully of all the pleasures...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom Sawyer first thinks of becoming a pirate in chapter VIII, when he contemplates running away from St. Petersburg. He considers several other professions, such as clown and soldier, but finally...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
There are a number of the different types of conflicts in the novel. Man vs. Man: Tom has adversarial relationships with a number of different characters throughout the novel. The big man vs. man...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The answer to this question can be found in the very first paragraph of chapter 6. Tom Sawyer really does not like Mondays. Readers are told that he finds the day "miserable." The reason for Tom's...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom shouted "look behind you" at his aunt Polly in the moments just before she was going to whip him with a switch for eating jam that he was told to leave alone. He yells that she should look...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Jim was reluctant in letting Tom take away the tin pail because Tom was attempting to swap chores with Jim. He tells Jim that he will take the pail to fetch water for Jim as well as give him a...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The whole town of St. Petersburg is in mourning over the deaths of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and Joe Harper. Only they're not actually dead; they ran away to become pirates, but as they...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
An example of a lie Tom Sawyer told is when he told his aunt that he did not play hooky and go swimming. At the beginning of the book, we are introduced to the playfully devious Tom with a classic...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom is full of superstitious rituals that revolve around marbles. First, he thinks that: If you buried a marble with certain necessary incantations, and left it alone a fortnight, and then opened...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
At the beginning of the story, Tom Sawyer's a mischievous, fun-loving scamp who doesn't take life too seriously. For Tom, life is an adventure, something to be enjoyed to the full. Possessed with a...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The life of a pirate seems so exciting to Tom, Huck, and Joe Harper. Tom paints a romanticized picture of life on the high seas for those who sail under the skull and crossbones. Pirates get to...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Injun Joe finds it quite easy to lie about the murder of the doctor. He is first introduced as one of three bandits planning on robbing a corpse of its wealth and possessions. Unfortunately, the...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
In the opening chapter, Aunt Polly is trying to get hold of Tom. But first, she has to get her spectacles on, and then she mistakenly pokes under the bed before finding Tom hiding in a closet. She...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
In chapter nine, as the two boys realize other people are in the dark graveyard at night, it is Huck Finn who appears more afraid of this fact than Tom Sawyer. Their dialogue goes as follows: “Oh,...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom feels sorry for Aunt Polly as Aunt Polly believes him dead after he runs away. She has always chastised him for his bad behaviour but she genuinely cares about him. Tom steals home secretly for...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Sid is Tom's brother. He is the good child who is a foil to Tom's ever-energetic mischief-making. Aunt Polly can rely on Sid to behave, go to school, and not make trouble in church. Tom often...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The exposition is the part of a story where background information on the characters and situations is presented. Although the plot structure of "Adventures of Tom Sawyer" is a little...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom decides he wants to dig for a buried treasure left behind by pirates. He looks for a companion. When some of his first choices fail him, he approaches Huck. Huck, who is always up for an...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
In Mark Twain’s novel, Tom Sawyer stands out for being no fan of rules, schedules, or authority. If a genie came into his life, one wish he might make would be to have school abolished, or at least...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The main character is Tom Sawyer. He is a young hooligan from a Southern town in the 19th century. In this chapter, he attempts to get out of whitewashing (painting) the fence by convincing...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
While Tom Sawyer’s hometown of St. Petersburg is fictional, many elements of Mark Twain’s childhood in Hannibal, Missouri, were incorporated into the story. Note that Mark Twain is a pen name, and...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
In chapter 11, we are told that "a gory knife had been found close to the murdered man, and it had been recognized by somebody as belonging to Muff Potter." This then is the principal reason as to...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
In chapter 6 of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Tom meets up with Huckleberry Finn on his way to school. They talk about different ways to get rid of warts. Huckleberry is carrying a...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom Sawyer is a young, upstanding boy with a vivid imagination and a heart of gold. We learn about Tom thoroughly in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. A smart young lad, Tom is no stranger to...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Characterization is the art of bringing characters on the page to life of which Mark Twain is truly a master. Characters can be flat, or one-dimensional, round in which the reader knows what truly...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
I wonder if you might be talking about the part in Chapter 25 when Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are digging for buried treasure. They are wondering why they can't find any and they come up with a few...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom has read enough fiction about pirates and buried treasures that he has some false ideas in his head about how to find treasure. His ideas differ from reality in that he thinks, for instance,...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
I think you could look at the main conflict in two ways. First, you could look at what the boys see as the main conflict. If you look at it this way, the main conflict is between the boys and...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom convinced passing kids from the neighborhood that whitewashing the fence was the new cool passtime. He told them that he was priviledged to be able to do it, and that it was too high a...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Even wilder and less civilized than his pal Tom, Huckleberry Finn makes his first appearance as the forbidden friend in Chapter 6 of Mark Twain's novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Tom is banned...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Upon seeing the dead body of Injun Joe, Tom feels pity, as well as "an abounding sense of relief and security". Ever since he had spoken in court in defense of Muff Potter, Tom has been terrified...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
It's a beautiful Saturday morning. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and all the trees and flowers look so fresh and lovely. It sure is a morning to gladden the hearts of everyone in St....
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom lies about the teacher's book. Becky had accidentally torn it, but Tom takes the blame. Mr. Dobbins, the "master" at school, has a "mysterious book" which he keeps in his desk and takes out...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
There are several instances throughout the novel where Aunt Polly punishes Tom for his behavior. Her most common form of punishment is beating Tom. In chapter 1, Aunt Polly attempts to beat him for...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
We are not explicitly told where Tom gets his ideas for what sort of things to pretend to be. We have to infer it for ourselves. The only real possibility is that Tom has read about pirates and...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The graveyard is old and overgrown. According to Huck, you can cure warts with a dead cat if you take it to the graveyard at midnight "when somebody that was wicked has been buried." You then have...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Injun Joe and his companion use the haunted house as a hiding place for the money they have accumulated through criminal means. They have "a bag that jingle(s) pleasantly" hidden behind...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
This allusion was probably included for two reasons. The first is that Tom and Becky are “imprisoned” in the cave. When they first arrive, the cave seems a magical place, and they wander into...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Perhaps, the best example of how wealth fosters social acceptance in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is in the development of the character of Huck Finn in the narrative. Whereas Huck has remained on...
