Mark Twain And Chekhov Morals

How have your views and opinions changed? What do you value and what do you not? Values are an essential part of everyday life. They are influenced by one’s personal experiences, and can either be supported or contradicted. Fictional characters are no different. In the stories of Mark Twain and Anton Chekhov, Tom Sawyer and “Home,” the main characters both go through a moral change. The two boys both have events occur that turn around their views for the better in the end.

Tom Sawyer is a character from a novel Twain had written. He is a twelve-year-old boy living near the Mississippi River. At the beginning of the novel, he was very cheeky and sly. He exploited others for his own benefit. In one chapter, he manipulates the other boys into whitewashing a fence for him by making the chore seem like play. In Chapter 2, the narrator states, “He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it--namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.” Seryozha is the child of Yevgeny, a prosecutor in Russia.. Seryozha is very ignorant child; he ignores the dangers of smoking and tries to change the topics whenever he is scolded.

When he witnesses a murder, committed by a man named Injun Joe, he fears for his own safety. A man named Muff Potter, the town drunkard, gets framed, Tom rethinks his actions. He sees how miserable Muff is and decides to reveal the truth in court, putting aside his worries for the greater good. Seryozha changes at the beginning of his story, however for the worse. When he finds the cigarettes, he begins to value them more than toys. This is seen when he repetitively tries to change the topic when he is being chastised. When his father, Yevgeny, asks is he would steal his toys, Seryozha offered them. He says, in response to Yevgeny, “Take them if you like! Please don't hesitate, Papa, take them!” Smoking had changed his