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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The answer to this question can be found at the very beginning of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In Chapter 1, Aunt Polly says the thing Tom hates more than anything else is work. Tom...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom Sawyer critiques much of American society in this seemingly light-hearted set of adventures. First, he mocks how easily deceived Americans are and how readily a "con man" can trick them. Early...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Muff Potter is arrested because he is believed to have murdered Doctor Robinson. In reality, it was Injun Joe who killed the doctor. Early on in the novel, Potter, Joe, and Robinson appear to be...
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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
Tom wants excitement and adventure. In Tom's opinion, life should never be boring. He doesn’t want adults to tell him what to do. He doesn’t want to spend his days doing chores or sitting in...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
A theme is that even when something doesn’t seem important to you, it might be very important to someone else. At first look, this seems like a silly story about a boy. Most of the episodes in...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
In Chapter Two of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom is forced to whitewash a fence. The fence is thirty yards long and made of boards nine feet high. Since it is a Saturday, all the other boys...
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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 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
All the frames in the comic strip could appear to be illuminated by the light of one little candle held either by Tom and Becky. The ceiling of the cave could be very high, and the figures of the...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
In reading book reviews of the time period, I found three that had at least a slightly negative comment about some aspect of the novel. Hartford Daily Times (December 20, 1876) (a general...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom tells Becky that he is going to be a circus clown when he grows up, and they make a lot of money. Tom is quite infatuated with Becky. He tries to impress her. He asks her if she has ever...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Interesting question! In the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Tom plays hooky after his fight with Becky. After his fight with Becky, Tom feels unloved and unappreciated. Tom...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Interesting question! In the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn witness a murder. Because the boys are afraid of the murderer, they make an oath with...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
On the surface, the relationship between adults and kids is primarily adversarial. Tom is constantly trying to outmaneuver Aunt Polly so he can play all day without consequences, the school...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
There is one clear moment of change, and that is at the end of the novel, when Tom urges Huck to stay with the widow Douglass and submit to proper clothes, Sunday school, and other conventions of...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Great question! In the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Tom and Huck get along very well throughout the story. Although there are many different factors that contribute to this...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The answer to this question changes as the novel progresses. At the beginning of the novel, Tom comes across as a fun-loving trickster, making mischief for his own entertainment and gain. This is...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
In Chapter 18 of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom has just returned to normal life in town after he and his friends made their grand reappearance at their own funeral. He is the hero of all the...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Interesting question! In the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Tom encourages Huckleberry Finn to hunt for treasure with him by demonstrating the entertainment and financial benefits...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The main theme of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the joys of childhood when the world is full of wonders and children are free of the heavy responsibilities of adulthood. Mark Twain was writing...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Interesting question! In the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Huck aids Widow Douglas. However, despite his benevolence, he wants his actions to remain secret. In the book, Huck...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Intriguing question! In the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, numerous quotes throughout the book demonstrate Tom being naïve. Foremost, Tom is shown as naïve when it relates to...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Aunt Polly loves Tom and does her best to provide him love and support even though he is sometimes difficult. Tom is a very spirited boy. He does not fit well into the boundaries of society. He...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom Sawyer is an interesting character because he is mischievous and is usually bucking the order of things, but at the same time, as his character develops through the novel, we see that he has a...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Aunt Polly is loving and patient with her mischievous nephew Tom. Aunt Polly is pretty much in over her head with her nephew Tom Sawyer. Tom is not only mischievous but clever, constantly coming...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom and Huck overhear Injun Joe and his accomplice discussing the treasure. Tom is obsessed with pirates and treasure, as most boys are. However, one day he overhears two conmen, Injun Joe and his...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom returns home because he found out their families thought they were dead. Tom and Joe run away because Tom is feeling sorry for himself because he is worried about Betsy. He runs into Joe, who...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Interesting question! In the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Tom witnesses a very unusual incident. In the book, Tom and Huck visit a graveyard, which leads to them witnessing a...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer takes place in St. Petersburg, Missouri, along the Mississippi River, in the 1840s. The small town and surrounding area is Tom’s playground for all the adventures he...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
It sounds to me like you need to come up with a different title for Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. That is an interesting problem, because I have always thought that the title to the...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Great question! In the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Mrs. Thatcher and Aunt Polly become worried. After the picnic, Mrs. Thatcher and Aunt Polly go to church. Mrs. Thatcher and...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
It is easy to see in Chapter XXXI how Tom and Becky could have gotten lost in the cave. At first they stayed with the rest of the company. Then the children began playing hide-and-seek. Naturally,...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Great question! In the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, many events occurred during the boys' (Tom, Huck, and Joe) time at the camp of the Freebooters. Although many events...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Willie Mufferson is only mentioned one time in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. This mention comes at the beginning of Chapter V. There, we find that the boys hate Willie Mufferson because he always...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The cat serves as comic relief and another example of Tom’s exploits when he feeds it painkillers. Tom is feeling depressed because Becky hasn’t been to school in a while. He finds out that...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Interesting question! In the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, superstition influences Tom and Huck. Consequently, the boys evaluate where they will go after they pass away. Because...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
As far as the reason for writing the book is concerned, Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) makes it clear in the preface of the first edition where he says: "Although my book is intended mainly for...
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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...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
As your question stated, the situations that Tom Sawyer was in during the novel are different than situations today, but kids in general are not different. Tom is a typical junior high kid. He...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
In Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain articulates a parody of the two institutions that provide the pillars of society: school and church, and very especially, Sunday school. Tom is a romantic hero with a...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
In his brief preface to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain, acknowledged that the future audience for his novel about a young mischievous boy in the American...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
One of the traditions of small town life that Twain loves to skewer is church. Tom has to memorize some verses before going to Sunday school, and for that, he "girded up his loins" and began to...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Interesting question! In the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Tom and Becky decided to go for a picnic. When Becky first instigated the idea, her motives were quite different. At...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The first Tom Sawyer play was produced in Seattle by the Seattle Children's Theater during their 1976-1977 season. If you were referring to the first Broadway play, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Tom's naughty behavior often gets him into trouble with his Aunt Polly. As punishment for skipping school Aunt Polly tells Tom he has to whitewash the fence....
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
According to Chapter 25 of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,only ghosts “use” blue lights. We are not told why this is so, or why Tom knows that it is so, but it is presented as a true fact. In...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is full of little conflicts. My personal favorite is the conflict in the beginning of the story when Tom is attempting to find a way out of painting the...
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Interesting question! In the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Aunt Polly is an important character. Aunt Polly has many unique attributes. Foremost, Aunt Polly is compassionate....
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck comes to stay with the Widow Douglas shortly after the end of the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and begins The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with her as well. Huck and Tom find gold in...