Introduction to the author:
The author, Mark Twain, is one the most influential writers in the history of America. He is regarded as The Mirror OF America. His miserable life gave him a lot of subjects to write. He was born in 1835 in Florida. He grew up in nearby Hannibal, a small Mississippi River Town. Hannibal is the real model for St. Petersburg, the fictionalized setting of Twain’s two most popular novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. After his birth, his father gave his name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He grew up in a prosperous family. His father is an owner of a large number of slaves and a grocery store. His miserable life began when his father passed away. He was at the age of 12 then. When he was a young man, he has done many kinds of jobs, such as tramp printer, river pilot, and prospector and so on. He gained familiarity with the river life that would furnish much material for his writing. He also gained his pen name, Mark Twain, which is a measure of depth in steamboat navigation. He also enlisted in the Confederate militia in 1861, early in the Civil War; afterwards he left to pursue a career in writing and journalism in Nevada and San Francisco. In the following decades, his article and stories became immensely popular. On the strength of this growing literary celebrity and financial success, he moved east in the late 1860s and married Olivia Langdon, the daughter of a prominent Elmira, New York. And then they settled in Hartford, there he wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which he published in 1876. Twain proceeded to write, among other things, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and two sequels to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894) and Tom Sawyer, Detective (1896). He died in 1910, one of America’s most beloved humorists and storytellers.
Twain based The Adventures of Tom Sawyer largely on his personal memories of growing up in Hannibal in the 1840s. In his preface to the novel, he states that “most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred” and that the character of Tom Sawyer has a basis in “a combination . . . of three boys whom I knew.” Indeed, almost all the figure in the novel can be found in the young Twain’s village. Unlike Twain’s later masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tome Sawyer concern itself primarily with painting an idyllic picture of boyhood life along the Mississippi River.
The stories in this novel:
The boy, Tom Sawyer, lived with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother, Sid, in the Mississippi River town of St. Petersburg, Missouri. There are a lot of interesting stories happened to this boy. Once, he was made whitewash the fence as a punishment on Saturday. At first, he is disappointed because he wants to play. However, his cleverness helps him persuade his friends to trade him small treasures for the privilege of doing the work for him. He trades these treasures for tickets, which was given out in Sunday school for memorizing Bible verse and uses the tickets to get a Bible as a prize. He feels ashamed, however, when he is asked to recite the Bible. He falls in love with Becky Thatcher, a girl from a richer family, and gets engaged with her in their own way. It is funnier when hearing Tom has been engaged before, they break up. During another stories, Tom, accompanied with his friends, witness the murder of young Dr. Robinson by the Native American Injun Joe. They are so scared that they run away with the promise that they won’t tell anyone what they have seen. Tom’s very good aged friend, Muff Potter, is wrongly arrested, for Injun Joe blames him for the crime. He has no idea about it. At that time, he was drunk. Tom’s anxiety and guilt lead him to tell the truth and he is brave enough to do so. But Injun Joe flees the courtroom through a window. He also wants to be a pirate. After several days to enjoy his long-waiting freedom, the boys feel their homesickness is growing. At last, they came back home and gets himself back in Becky’s favor. One day, when the pupils go camping, Tom and Becky get lost in the cave. Their absence was not discovered until the second day. The adults begin to search for them, but it doesn’t help. On the other hand, Tom and Becky are trying every means to get out. The horror situation came when they discover the fleeing Injun Joe is using the cave to hide. The murder wants to kill them. They survived when the murder fells down the rock. Tom leads Becky to get out of the cave and his braveness is praised by Judge Thatcher, Becky’s father.
My opinion:
The novel belongs to the works of the critical realism period. His work is based on the real world and tries to portrait something of it. The exchange between the young boys emerges the initial commercial relationships. The boys mention again and again their admiration for the circus life and their desire to be clowns when they grow up. These references emphasize the innocence with which they approach the world. Rather than evaluate the real merits and shortcomings of the various occupation Tom and Hank could realistically choose, they like to imagine themselves in roles they find romantic or exciting. Being a pirate is such an example. They are seeking for fun, for freedom, for treasure and love. They have the courage and they are brave enough to pursue the life they want. The novel is focusing one little boy, portraying the naïve childhood in the real life of American countryside. His cleverness and courage have left us a deep impression. This is typical model of rural life in 19th century.
References:
http://book.4ewriting.com/Article/ArticleShow.asp?articleID=123
http://www.yifan.net/yihe/novels/foreign/tom/tom.html
http://www.pku.edu.cn/study/novel/tom/cindex.html
http://www.englishc.com/html/yingyuwenxue/20071121/1228.html
http://sunshenglei.blogcn.com/diary,3167133.shtml
