THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER

Noah Moufarrij
2/3/2015
English 6, period 6

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People must change to live life, but during Mark Twains masterpiece The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer, how does the main character really change? We are introduced to Tom being a coward,
when we see him running from Aunt Polly when he is caught eating Jam. Tom lives in a world
defined by the customs and values of boys.1 Though Tom may do some daring things, most of
his actions are made in a sub-conscientious fear. So, how can Tom shake this fear off? Toms
changes are what make the story interesting, but one may wonder how Tom changes the most.
Shortly after the story begins, the famous scene of whitewashing the fence comes into play.
First, Tom is painting the fence and he is sad because he cannot go and play. Then, Ben
approaches Tom and teases him of how he must be having no fun. Finally, Tom acts like it is a
great honor to whitewash a fence and convinces Ben and many other children that he must pay a
great deal to do it. Tom discovers something without knowing it; -that in order to make a man
or boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.2 Now one must see
that Tom is becoming street smart, having the ability to survive in the world. This is a good
change from cowardly, as it teaches him that he can simply think his way through things instead
of running away from them. Tom still has to change more; and so we must look to the middle of
the story.

During the middle of the story, Tom becomes more audacious, and less cowardly. One time,
Tom wakes up on a school day and, Presently it occurred to him that he wished he was sick;

1
2

(Jana 2011)
(Twain 2001) pg: 17

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then he could stay home from school.3 Tom tries to get his wishes by acting like he is sick and
in extreme pain. Of course, when Tom tells Aunt Polly his tooth hurts, she just takes the tooth
out and Toms plan fails. Luckily, for Tom, this ends up making him look cooler in the eyes of
his friends and peers, so he finds a positive tone in the ordeal. So, is Tom a brave character yet?
No, but he is getting there by starting to take a more direct route at things. Toms audacity will is
a good improvement, but he still has a long journey to travel. Remember, audacity is not bravery,
audacity is simply the ability to act out, but bravery is the ability to face intimidating things,
acting out or not.
In the closure of the story, Tom truly becomes a lion. When Tom and Becky play hide and
seek in a cave and find out they are trapped with not much more than a few candles, a cake,
water and some kite string, readers are left wondering how they will escape. After much walking,
and being attacked by bats; Becky grows tired and cannot go on. Then, Tom kissed her, with a
choking sensation in his throat, and made a show of being confident of finding the searchers or
an escape from the cave; then he took the kite-line in his hand and went groping down one of the
passages on his hands and knees, distressed with hunger and sick with bodings of coming
doom.4 Tom eventually finds a crack, gets Becky, and the two of them go home. Imagine being
trapped in a dark cave with little to no food, and being extremely fatigued. Tom was in this exact
scenario, yet he stared Death in the eyes and said No. Tom did not know what was in the cave,
besides Injun Joe, yet Tom got up and found the courage in himself to go through darkness and
oblivion, to find the light.

3
4

Ibid. pg: 46
(Twain 2001)pg: 228

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So in the end, Tom did in fact change, this should have been obvious, and if it was not;
hopefully it is now. In the beginning of the book before he was stuck in a cave, Tom was a
coward; he would run away from everything and not own up to it, like he did when Aunt Polly
caught him eating jam. Some time passes, and Tom becomes street smart, and has the ability to
use his mind to a greater extent to understand human nature. During the story, Tom does some
audacious things, like the time he tried to avoid school by pretending he was sick, but that still
does not make him brave. In the end, after everything happened, Tom became courageous and
brave, he showed this when he got out of a dark cave when he was tired and scared. Young
Tom isn't a bad boy, but instead a thoughtful and sensible kid who happens to be a magnet for
trouble.5 But, he is not very brave in the beginning, which would be usual for kids his age,
despite all of this, Tom was able to get himself together, and face his fears. Above all, Tom was
able to change himself for the better and became a better person, which is often very hard to do.

(shmoop.com 2014)

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jana, Arghya. "Critical analysis of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."
http://arghyajanaliteratureguide.blogspot.com. September 8, 2011.
http://arghyajanaliteratureguide.blogspot.com/2011/09/critical-analysis-of-adventures-oftom.html (accessed December 2, 2014).
"shmoop.com." The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. 2014. http://www.shmoop.com/tom-sawyer/tomsawyer-character.html (accessed December 2, 2014).
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. New York, New York: Random House, Inc. , 2001.