Childhood In Mark Twain's The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer

789 Words2 Pages

English Childhood Essay
As a child did you ever go exploring or display a typical childhood sense of adventure? In the book, “Tom Sawyer”, Tom and Huck go on the treasure hunting adventure of a lifetime. A sense of adventure never fades and in the book “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” the wonderful sense of early childhood joy, curiosity and adventure is clearly present no matter the era and even with the changes in childhood and adulthood.
In the scene where Tom and Huck go to look for treasure is perfect portrayal of late to early childhood. Tom and Huck spend hours digging for a treasure only existent in their young minds. Mark Twain himself even writes,”There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire …show more content…

Tom and Huck are almost sweet and innocent in portrayal, Injun one of the only two adults in the scene is tainted by the real world evil and is a mean abusive drunk who only cares about his money and vengeance. This is shown in a number of quotes as in, “Part, there’s thousands of dollars here!” (page 136). The quote shows that even though Tom and Huck desire money and treasure they are in fact children and have unrealistic childish desires. As in the quote, “We’ll, I’ll have pie and soda everyday” Mark Twain characterize Injun Joe and his unnamed accomplice as drunken criminals who only care for themselves. Where Tom and Huck are childish and innocent in nature, Injun Joe and his partner are dark and evil. Mark Twain in a sense more likely chose to display these characters in that manner that he chose to highlight the stark differences in the childish youthfulness that Tom, Huck and the other children represent and the evil and vicious ways that Injun Joe shows are not representative of all adults and but of those who grow up without guidance and direction or in simple terms fun and …show more content…

Children no matter the era or time always and forever will have a sense of adventure. None the less as the times have changed the ways children have expressed their senses of adventure have changed with them. In the past children would spent hours unsupervised exploring. In more recent eras with development of technology and the changing of time it has became unacceptable for children to spend time alone exploring. Instead children have spent time exploring parks and toys to entertain their sense of adventure. Instead of plain adventure children are using their imaginations to explore and adventure beyond their world. Today’s childhood children are facing a technological era that could have both a negative and positive affect on their future. Children in the novelTom Sawyer” enjoy more freedoms than when I did as a child. Tom and Huck in particular have little to no chores and requirement at home and school seems to be pointless in nature revolving around religion and the bible. School today however focused on the more meaningful subjects such as math, science, english, foreign language, and social studies, we also today have a higher average of work and homework done in class and school. Children today also have very little free time to adventure and explore compared to the time that students had in the era of Mark Twain, today’s time is instead filled with sports, homework, studying, and clubs.

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