Tom Sawyer is one of the most striking childhood characters ever created by Mark Twain. In Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain embodied the typical image. The boy has everything characteristic of his age, environment, time, country. This is a living image of a boy. A desperate mischief-maker, inventive, restless, constant leader of boyish games, Tom Sawyer is by no means a child prodigy, not a genius, striking with his exceptional talent and giftedness. Twain even tried to give his hero a name that would sound like any other boy’s name. But it is precisely the generalizing completeness with which all the typical features of a normal, healthy childhood are brought together here that gives the hero of the novel the features of a pronounced individual originality. He is not only a “type”, but also a “character”, all woven from contradictions and yet internally holistic.

We see Tom clearly and enjoy every meeting with him. We understand him both when he plays pranks and when, shedding tears, he looks at Aunt Polly praying for him. In his heart live joy and resentment, bitterness and fun, dissatisfaction with school, prohibitions, moral teachings, and at the same time the mischief of a healthy child, endowed with a wild imagination. Twain does not have a one-line definition of a hero. Paradoxical things happen in the story: Aunt Polly knows that Tom is not “good,” but she does not raise her hand to punish the boy, “bad” Tom cannot act meanly with Becky, and “good” Alfred deliberately sets up meanness.

The heroes of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" are teenage boys who have not yet entered into life. They go to school without much desire, play a lot of pranks and secretly dream, having escaped from the care of adults, to devote themselves to their own interests - separate and independent from adults. This is Tom Sawyer. The most essential thing in Tom’s appearance is a passionate, indomitable desire to live freely, so that all the boys he knows would languish with envy, and the adults would be dumbfounded with surprise - to live in such a way that the “dead hand of custom” could not fetter with its icy cold and would not make him as a “good boy”, that is, a walking dummy. Unconsciously and consciously, children stubbornly and persistently fight the deadening boredom of Puritanism in everyday life, in the family, at school. They instinctively rebel against the inert force of bourgeois morality. Social life fades into the background here. He is associated in the story with images of adults - parents, teachers, priest - and in the eyes of the boys he represents a bunch of annoying restrictions in their free boyish activities that should be avoided. Tom eludes Aunt Polly's lectures, languishes in church during a long Sunday service, gets a beating from a teacher at school and tries to quickly forget about everything and surrender to his own joys and sorrows. The conflict between the natural principles of life and wretched bourgeois morality in Tom Sawyer acquires specific psychological content. It turns into a conflict between a living, healthy tomboy boy and the world of adults, boring people opposing him. The narrative is built on the pervasive antithesis of “adult” and “child,” which represents a psychological modification of the characteristic antithesis of “natural” and “artificial.”

Nature in the story is not something external brought by the writer into the lives of the characters. This is the organic background of their boyish life. The broad background for all the events in the book is the mighty river with its open spaces, the cave with its beauty and fears, the forest with its romance of the “robber” life. Tom and his friends, deciding to “become pirates,” steal a neighbor’s raft and spend several days on Jackson’s Island: “It was a cool, gray morning. In the deep silence of the forest lurked a delightful sense of calm and peace. Not a leaf moved; not a sound disturbed thoughts of great nature." Here we see the harmony of nature and the immaculate child’s soul. Tom Sawyer with a “broken heart” goes into the forest and, having acted out a scene from Robin Hood there, returns healed.

What is valued in St. Petersburg by adults is disdained by children, because the world of adults is filled with conventions, their opinions are determined by calculation, vanity, and fear of public opinion, while children's consciousness is free from them.

From the point of view of adults, the most radical means of persuasion and education is the stick. Slaps, slaps, and beatings rain down on Tom Sawyer throughout the story. At home Aunt Polly snaps him with a thimble, and at school the teacher's rod walks along his back. Daily spanking is an indispensable element of his existence, and he is so accustomed to this pedagogical procedure that he almost stopped noticing it. However, the system of child abuse occurs in other forms. Along with physical methods of coercion, there are also spiritual ones. One of the greatest conventions of adult life is religion. How boyishly Tom Sawyer deals with her mercilessly! His childish mind is free from reverent respect for ritual, religious attributes, and generally accepted canons. Church services only bring him stupefying boredom. The prank with the poodle, which caused an unimaginable fuss in the church during Sunday service, is an excellent contrast to the prim church rituals. A poodle ran into the church during the sermon. And Tom had a beetle. The poodle “began to nod off; little by little his head drooped onto his chest, and his lower jaw touched the enemy, who grabbed it. The poodle squealed desperately, shook his head, the beetle flew two steps to the side and fell on his back again. Those that sat nearby, shaking with silent laughter, many faces were hidden behind fans and handkerchiefs; and Tom was immensely happy." Then the poodle “forgot about the beetle and calmly sat down on it! There was an insane squeal, the poodle rushed down the aisle and, without ceasing to squeal, rushed around the church; the more he rushed, the stronger his pain grew; finally the dog turned into some kind of furry comet... By this time everyone in the church was sitting with crimson faces, choking with suppressed laughter. Even the sermon had stalled a little." The childish prank gives Twain the opportunity to show that going to church is just a tribute to the “generally accepted”, and sermons are murderous boredom. There is no real piety in the church, the choristers are always giggling, and no one is able to listen to a boring sermon. Widow Douglas all the time “prays for her to be empty!” and irritates Huck. Boys exchange tickets earned for memorizing Bible verses for fishhooks. As a result, Tom, who cannot name any of the 12 apostles, but managed to exchange the required number of tickets, is awarded a Bible for his exemplary knowledge of the gospel. So, for Tom, “the church is rubbish compared to the circus.” This phrase is natural in the mouth of a twelve-year-old boy. But it also characterizes the attitude of the average 19th-century American to the church.

Twain also criticizes the deadening system of schooling: cramming, mind-numbing routine, canings, beatings. School does not cripple Tom's soul just because the boy has other exciting interests. School for Tom is “prison and shackles,” and the time from Sunday to Sunday is “a week of torment.” In sharply ironic scenes depicting various clashes between adults and children, Twain shows that violence against the child’s personality is the leading principle of official pedagogy. It is against this violence that children rebel. “Tangled and tortured boys from decent families” secretly envy the homeless tramp Huck Finn, who alone in the whole city is free to do whatever he wants, regardless of any prohibitions and restrictions. A mischievous and rebel, Tom Sawyer enjoys Twain's favor precisely because, instinctively sweeping away everything that could drown out his characteristic living sense of life, he remains internally free. The priest's sermons, the edifications of Sunday school teachers, the teachers' rods, and Aunt Polly's thimble do not affect his inner world, and he retains all the living naturalness of his feelings.

Tom hates school and all other conventions: he is always forced to do what he doesn’t want, because “that’s the way it should be.” It’s not for nothing that on the first page of the novel, Aunt Polly looks out for the mischievous Tom “between the beds of tomatoes and tall weeds.” Lush grass growing in spite of garden conditions is a symbol of Tom Sawyer’s nature, an image of a rebellious tomboy who instinctively rebelled against the ugliness of a stagnant bourgeois life.

But, rejecting some - everyday - conventions of the surrounding life, Tom submits to others - book ones. For him, as for Don Quixote, everything he read from books is an unshakable law. To be a hermit, you need to “sleep on a hard stone, wear a rough hair shirt, sprinkle ashes on your head, stand in the rain.” Simple-minded Huck wonders: what is all this for? “- I don’t know. Only all hermits do this; it must be so. So you, Huck, would do the same thing if you were a hermit.” “Well, no, you’re wrong, no way!” "- How could it be otherwise? It’s impossible without this."

The consciousness of Tom and Huck is full of superstitions and prejudices. For the author this is an inexhaustible source of comic relief; with all this he characterizes the environment that raised Tom and Huck, the low cultural level of the American common people. The literate Tom Sawyer and the illiterate Huck Finn are at almost the same level of development. But their natural sharpness, observation and intelligence help them to crawl out of the viscous mud of inertia on their own.

There are many signs, beliefs, and superstitions in the story; in children's everyday life they play an even greater role than in the world of adults: they make the game mysteriously “creepy”. But it turns out that the most exciting and tempting thing is overcoming the “terrible” that the superstitious fantasy of Tom and Huck is full of. What could captivate the hearts of brave boys more than a night adventure, when, overcoming fear, you need to go to an abandoned place at midnight, find the shadow of a branch of an old rotten tree and discover the treasure hidden there, which is guarded by the dead and ghosts. Or: it takes a lot of courage to go to a cemetery at night with a dead cat on a rope and know that the dead are listening to the conversations of the living. Of course, there is nothing mysterious or mysterious about the dead cat itself, but it can serve as a means of treating warts. Tom's conversation with Huck in the cemetery leaves no doubt that the boys have their own view of the relationship between living people and those who have died and lie underground. “A quiet wind moaned in the branches, and Tom feared that it was the souls of the dead complaining that they had been disturbed...

What do you think, Gekki, will the dead like the fact that we came to them?

Who knows, I don’t know! It's creepy here... Isn't it?

There was a long silence: both thought about how the dead would react to their visit. Then Tom whispered:

Listen, Hecky, do you think old man Williams can hear what we're saying?

Of course he hears.

Silence again.

I should have said "Mr. Williams" better. But I didn’t want to offend him. That's what everyone called him - the old man.

You have to be more careful when you talk about a dead person, Tom...”

The masterful construction of the scene in the cemetery well reveals the writer's goal: to show that real life is sometimes worse than any superstitious fiction. The boys stubbornly compare their small everyday experiences with “legalized” beliefs and signs. A stray dog ​​howled at midnight near Johnny Miller's house, and even a nightjar sat on the railing of the porch of their house and sang - but no one in the Miller house died. Another episode: “A small green caterpillar crawled along a leaf wet with dew. From time to time it raised two-thirds of its body, as if looking around, and then crawled further.” “Takes measurements, just like a tailor,” said Tom... And when, standing for some time in painful thought, with his body raised up, the caterpillar decided to crawl along his leg and began to travel throughout his whole body, his heart was filled with joy, because this meant that he would have a new suit ... ". A desire is born in the souls of children to understand, check and realize everything. Curiosity is stronger than fear and religious prejudices.

In the fight against superstitious fears and real everyday misadventures, the decisive character of Tom Sawyer is formed. He comes to the defense of Muff Potter, who is innocent of murder. However, he is forced to do this not only by a sense of justice, but also by vanity. Unbridled imagination, energy, and thirst for adventure push him toward everything that seems dangerous and requires courage, bravery, and audacity.

In the story, Twain the humorist made excellent use of the ability of children's consciousness to copy their surroundings. The love story of Tom and Becky is a light lyrical parody of the relationship between two adult lovers: Tom tries to win the heart of a stranger; he yearns under her window, and the maid pours a tub of slop on him; Tom achieves a kiss and "betrothal", but inadvertently arouses Beca's jealousy; Tom - a man and a knight - guards Becky in the cave and saves her from a possible painful death. He waits for her near the school all the time. Finally, “another dress flashed at the gate, and Tom’s heart skipped a beat. A moment - and he was already in the yard, raging like an Indian: he screamed, laughed, chased the boys - in a word, he performed all sorts of heroic deeds, all the time while glancing in Becky's direction, he rushed around her with war cries, tore off someone's cap and threw it onto the roof, crashed into a crowd of boys, threw them in different directions, stretched out on the ground right in front of Becky and almost knocked her down her off her feet. She turned away, turned up her nose and said: “Pfft! Some people imagine that they are the most interesting of all... Tom’s cheeks flushed. He rose from the ground, dejected, crushed, and slowly walked away.” Funny and touching are intertwined in the image of this boy. Humor helps Twain penetrate deeply into the heart of a child, to see and show what is healthy, fresh, and beautiful that is in his hero. Tom's love is not only poetic, but extremely interesting. His romance with Becky is an exciting game of love. Playing with love is fun, and it is no coincidence that this very word comes to Tom’s mind when he introduces Becky to the rules of a new exciting game for her. Some scenes in the story are openly parodic. Thus, the episode in which Becky, appearing before Tom for the first time, throws a flower to his bliss, represents a parody of one of the most cliched situations of an ordinary love story. In Twain's book, this scene seems lively and charming thanks to many humorous details. For example, telling the reader that Tom takes the precious gift of love not with his hand, but with his toes and, due to poor knowledge of anatomy, keeps it not near his heart, but near his stomach. These humorous details unusually enliven the picture depicted by Twain and give it an ironic meaning.

One of the charming features of the novel is connected with Tom - the atmosphere of the game. Tom Sawyer's unbridled fantasy is a poetic force that keeps his own spiritual world intact, protecting it from the corrupting influence of inert everyday life, the force that attracts Huck to Tom and makes them bosom friends. By depicting the behavior of children at play, Twain blurs the lines between the imaginary and the real. A child playing in an imaginary world lives a full life. The fantasy of a treasure leads them to the treasures of Injun Joe, the thirst for an extraordinary adventure leads them to the romantic and tragic stay of Tom and Becky in the cave; robber game - to real bandits and murderers. Tom is convinced that next to the uninteresting, dull life there is a wonderful and bright world, which is easy and simple to get into. He plays even when he is just living.

Reproducing the “dialectic” of a child’s soul, Twain shows that each object turns to the child with its playful, entertaining side. It would never occur to any adult that tooth extraction could be associated with any but the most unpleasant experiences. Meanwhile, Tom’s extracted tooth conceals inexhaustible possibilities for an interesting pastime. “When Tom went to school after breakfast, all the comrades he met on the street were jealous of him, since the emptiness that had formed in the upper row of his teeth allowed him to spit in a completely new, wonderful way.”

Merging with his hero, Mark Twain looks at the world through his eyes, which opens the way for penetration into the soul of a child. The alternation of events in the story is given as a consistent change in Tom’s life impressions. Often they appear before the reader’s eyes not in their immediate form, but in a reflected form - the way the hero sees them. In the construction of his work, Twain seems to reproduce the logic of the “uninhibited” child’s consciousness, in which one impression displaces another. Tom, like a true child, cannot think about different things at the same time.

As can be seen from the above, Tom is always sincere and spontaneous in everything. This is what makes his image charming. But at the same time, the image of Tom Sawyer is quite complex: it combines contradictory features - childish selfishness and impulses of generosity; romantic dreaminess and sober practicality; courage and the ability to succumb to overwhelming fear; a highly developed sense of camaraderie and fierce childhood ambition - nowhere and to anyone could he give way to the place of leader, “hero”, first inventor. Twain understood that the fate of his hero would depend on whether he could subsequently fully submit to the “moral principles” of the society in which he lives. The writer believed that the story of Tom Sawyer could be continued in two versions: in one of them, Tom achieves high honors, and in the other, he ends up on the gallows.

The entire analysis, as we tried to show, indicates that the artist’s attention is focused on protecting the child’s right to have a childhood, on the specifics of child psychology. Affirming the poetry and beauty of a pure, fresh, uncorrupted consciousness, Twain in his story shows the world as a child sees it - pure, ingenuous, naive, with dazzling colors and transparency of color. Humor helps Twain penetrate deeply into the heart of a child, to see and show what is healthy, fresh, and beautiful that is in his hero. The story is full of revealing observations and judgments of the author. They were the result of Twain's realistic method. Only the ineradicable optimism of childhood was able to overcome the spiritual poverty of philistine existence. In the story, elements of the new in the creative method of Twain the realist are clearly perceptible. Techniques for individualizing the characteristics of heroes are becoming richer, more complex and more varied; instead of dry descriptiveness, artistic pictures are given that convince the reader with their imagery and liveliness; the ability to show life conflicts not only in external clashes, but also in conveying the spiritual state of the heroes appears. Also, pictures of nature are organically woven into the story. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, realism and romanticism are presented in a complex fusion, which largely determines the artistic originality of the book.

The work of the famous American publicist and writer Mark Twain about the adventures of two boys still remains the most beloved and read all over the world. And not only a favorite work for boys, but also for adults who remember their mischievous childhood. This is the story of young America, whose romanticism still touches boys all over the world.

The history of writing "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"

The first work in the series of adventures of American boys was published in 1876, the author at that time was just over 30 years old. Obviously, this played a role in the brightness of the book’s images. America at the end of the 19th century had not yet gotten rid of slavery, half of the continent was “Indian territory,” and boys remained boys. According to many testimonies, Mark Twain described himself in Tom, not only his real self, but also all his dreams of adventure. The real feelings and emotions are described that worried the boy of that time, and which continue to worry the boys today.

The main characters are two friends, Tom, who is being raised by his lonely aunt, and Huck, a city street child. Inseparable in their fantasies and adventures, both boys are typical images, but the main character remains Tom Sawyer. He has a younger brother, more rational and obedient, he has school friends, and a boyish crush - Becky. And like any boy, the main events in life are connected with a thirst for adventure and first love. An ineradicable thirst constantly draws Tom and Huck into dangerous adventures, some of which, of course, are fictional by the author, some are real events. Things like running away from home or going to a cemetery at night are easy to believe. And these adventures, interspersed with descriptions of ordinary boyish everyday life, ordinary pranks, joys and annoyances, become reality thanks to the genius of the author. The description of American life at that time is impressive. What is lost in the modern world is democracy and the spirit of freedom.

Chronicle of Young America (plot and main idea)

A town on the banks of the Mississippi, in which residents mixed into a single society, despite differences in property, race and even age. Negro Jim, in slavery to Aunt Polly, mestizo Injun Joe, Judge Thacher and his daughter Becky, street child Huck and rascal Tom, Doctor Robenson and undertaker Potter. Tom's life is described with such humor and with such naturalness that the reader forgets in which country it happens, as if he is remembering what happened to himself.

The boy Tom Sawyer, together with his younger brother, who is clearly more positive than him, is raised by his old aunt after the death of his mother. He goes to school, plays on the street, fights, makes friends and falls in love with a beautiful peer, Becky. One day he met his old friend Huckleberry Fin on the streets, with whom they had a deep debate about ways to remove warts. Huck told a new method of mixing using a dead cat, but it is necessary to visit the cemetery at night. This is where all the significant adventures of these two tomboys began. Previously occurring conflicts with his aunt, entrepreneurial ideas with receiving a bonus Bible at Sunday school, whitewashing the fence as a punishment for disobedience, which Tom successfully transformed into personal success, fade into the background. Everything except love for Becky.

Having witnessed a fight and a murder, two boys for a long time doubt the need to bring everything they saw to the attention of adults. Only sincere pity for the old drunkard Potter and a sense of universal justice force Tom to speak at the trial. By doing so, he saved the life of the accused and put his own life in mortal danger. Injun Joe's revenge is a very real threat for the boy, even under the protection of the law. Meanwhile, Tom and Becky's romance began to crack, and this distracted him from everything else for a long time. He suffered. It was finally decided to run away from home from unhappy love and become a pirate. It’s good that there is a friend like Huck who agrees to support any adventure. A school friend, Joe, also joined them.

This adventure ended as it should have. Tom's heart and Huck's rationality forced them to return to the town from the island on the river after they realized that the whole town was looking for them. The boys returned just in time for their own funeral. The joy of the adults was so great that the boys were not even given a beating. Several days of adventure brightened up the boys' lives with the memories of the author himself. After that, Tom was sick, and Becky went away for a long time and far away.

Before the start of the school year, Judge Thacher threw a luxurious party for the children in honor of the birthday of his returning daughter. A trip on a river boat, a picnic and a visit to caves, this is something even modern children could dream about. Here Tom's new adventure begins. Having made peace with Becky, the two of them run away from the company during a picnic and hide in a cave. They got lost in passages and grottoes, the torch that lit their way burned out, and they had no provisions with them. Tom behaved courageously, this reflected all his enterprise and responsibility as a growing man. Quite by accident, they came across Injun Joe hiding the stolen money. After wandering around the cave, Tom finds a way out. The children returned home to the joy of their parents.

The secret seen in the cave haunts him, Tom tells Huck everything, and they decide to check the Indian's treasure. The boys go to the cave. After Tom and Becky safely got out of the maze, the city council decided to close the entrance to the cave. This became fatal for the mestizo; he died in the cave from hunger and thirst. Tom and Huck carried away a whole fortune. Since the treasure did not belong to anyone in particular, two boys became its owners. Huck received the protection of the widow Douglas, coming under her tutelage. Tom is also rich now. But Huck was able to endure “high life” for no more than three weeks, and Tom, who met him on the shore near the barrel hut, openly declared that no wealth could keep him from becoming a “noble robber.” The romanticism of the two friends had not yet been suppressed by the “golden calf” and the conventions of society.

The main characters and their characters

All the main characters of the story are the thoughts and feelings of the author, his memories of childhood, his sense of that very American dream and universal human values. When Huck complained that he could not live in idleness, Tom answered him uncertainly: “But everyone lives like that, Huck.” In these boys, Mark Twain describes his attitude to human values, to the value of freedom and understanding between people. Huck, who has seen more bad things, shares with Tom: “It’s just embarrassing for all people,” when he talks about the insincerity of relationships in high society. Against the romantic background of a story about childhood, written with good humor, the writer clearly outlines all the best qualities of a little person, and the hope that these qualities will remain for life.

A boy raised without a mother or father. The author does not reveal what happened to his parents. According to the story, one gets the impression that Tom gained all his best qualities on the street and at school. Aunt Poly's attempts to instill in him basic behavioral stereotypes cannot be crowned with success. Tom is the ideal boy and tomboy in the eyes of boys all over the world. On the one hand, this is hyperbole, but on the other hand, having a real prototype, Tom really carries within himself all the best that a growing man can carry within himself. He is brave, with a keen sense of justice. In many episodes, he displays precisely these qualities in difficult life situations. Another feature that cannot affect the feelings of an American. This is savvy and enterprise. All that remains is to remember the story of whitewashing the fence, which is also a far-reaching project. Burdened with various boyish prejudices, Tom looks like a completely ordinary boy, which captivates the reader. Everyone sees a small reflection of themselves in it.

A homeless child with a living father. The drunkard appears in the story only in conversations, but this already somehow characterizes the living conditions of this boy. Tom's constant friend and faithful companion in all adventures. And if Tom is a romantic and a leader in this company, then Huck is a sober mind and life experience, which is also necessary in this tandem. An attentive reader has the impression that Huck is described by the author as the other side of the coin of a growing person, a citizen of America. Personality is divided into two types - Tom and Huck, which are inseparable. In subsequent stories, the character of Huck will be revealed more fully, and often, in the reader’s soul, these two images are mixed and always receive sympathy.

Becky, Aunt Polly, Negro Jim and half-breed Injun Joe

These are all people with whom the best in the protagonist’s character is revealed. Tender love in a girl of the same age and real care for her in moments of danger. A respectful, although sometimes ironic, attitude towards the aunt, who spends all her strength to raise Tom as a real respectable citizen. A Negro slave, who is an indicator of America at that time and the attitude towards slavery of the entire progressive public, because Tom is friends with him, justifiably considering him an equal. The author’s, and therefore Tom’s, attitude towards Injun Joe is far from clear. The romance of the Indian world was not yet so idealized at that time. But internal pity for the mestizo who died of hunger in the cave characterizes not only the boy. The realities of the Wild West are visible in this image; a cunning and cruel mestizo takes revenge with his life on all whites. He is trying to survive in this world, and society allows him to do so. We do not see the deep condemnation that it would seem should have been for a thief and murderer.

Continuation of the epic adventure

Later, Mark Twain wrote several more stories about Tom and his friend Huck. The author grew up along with his heroes, and America changed too. And in subsequent stories there was no longer that romantic recklessness, but more and more of the bitter truth of life appeared. But even in these realities, Tom, Huck, and Becky retained their best qualities, which they received in childhood on the banks of the Mississippi in a small town with the distant name of the Russian capital - St. Petersburg. I don’t want to part with these heroes, and they remain ideals in the hearts of the boys of that era.

It is easy to imagine the feeling of two boys who found themselves in a cemetery at night. They have always been attracted to everything secret, unknown, associated with danger. Tom and Huck loved to be discoverers of the mysterious. The night cemetery was precisely the place that fully satisfied their craving for adventure. What they witnessed was terrible. Sitting behind three large sedge trees near a fresh grave, Tom and Huck became unwitting witnesses to a quarrel between Injun Joe and Doctor Robinson. Muff Potter was also present during this quarrel. Joe, approaching the doctor, began to demand from him an additional salary for digging up the grave. The doctor replied that he had already paid enough, but the Indian insisted on additional compensation. The doctor's intransigence inflamed Joe, and he began to offend him. Word by word - and a brawl began. The doctor beat the villain with one blow. Potter, trying to stop the quarrel, decided to calm the doctor down. But he miscalculated his strength and ended up on the ground. When Potter came to understanding, the doctor was dead, and in his hand he saw his own knife.

Injun Joe committed the murder, but he transferred everything to Potter, who, of course, could not know how it really happened. The truth was known to Tom and Huck, who saw everything while sitting in the shelter. The guys were afraid of revenge from the Indian if he found out about the existence of witnesses to the bloody massacre. They swore not to tell anyone the truth about what they saw. A judicial investigation has begun. Injun Joe testified against the innocent Potter, who was believed to be the killer of Doctor Robinson. Rumors were spreading in the city that poor Potter was being executed - the gallows awaited him. The boys suffered more and more, feeling remorse. After all, they could have saved an innocent person who had never harmed anyone. “He has a kind soul,” said Huck Finn. “He once gave me fish, even though he didn’t have enough himself.” And he stood up for me more than once, helping me when it was difficult.” “And for me, Huck, he repaired kites and tied hooks to fishing rods,” added Tom. So, it turned out that on one side was the boys’ fear of the Indian and Joe, and on the other was the torment of their conscience. Remorse still overcomes fear. Tom takes an oath of silence. At the trial, he tells everything that he saw in the cemetery. Now the formidable Indian Joe is afraid of punishment and flees from the courtroom.

I wondered: could Tom continue to remain silent? Finally this story fell into oblivion b. So what if Potter would have suffered? But you wouldn’t have to fear for your life and avoid meeting with Injun Joe. But then it wouldn't be Tom Sawyer. Since Tom Sawyer was a kind, sensitive boy, he could not put up with injustice. Tom's pure soul saved the life of Potter, who was unjustly accused. It should be noted the spirit of justice that cemented the friendship of Tom and Huck. They divided the treasure like brothers. Huck by that time was living with the widow Douglas. Huck healed like a person, everything was according to schedule, but he suffered from it as if from unbearable pain. He had already decided to nod his heels. But here Tom came to the rescue. He explained to his friend that time would pass and Huck would get used to it, and then they would gather a gang together, draw up an oath and become real robbers. And then they will start talking about them, and the Widow Douglas will even be proud of Huck.

When love for your neighbor overcomes your own fear. Essay on the story “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”

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The theme of friendship and dreams in Mark Twain's story “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”
In the story “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” the main character is the boy Tom. He is very restless and constantly gets into some kind of story. Tom has a half-brother, Sid. But Sid is not like Tom. Sid was considered a good boy, and Tom was considered a bad boy. But Tom still loved his brother, although Sid talked about Tom’s tricks to Aunt Polly, with whom the boys lived. Tom is a good friend. He is friends with Huck, although Aunt Polly does not like this friendship. Tom was a wealthy boy from a good family. And Huck's father was a drunkard.

Tom went to school, but Huck did not. Tom and Huck met each other secretly. Tom and Huck's friendship has been tested. When Tom decided that he was not loved, the boys ran away from home. They traveled a lot. But soon Tom wanted to return home, but Huck didn’t want to. He only had his father at home, whom Huck didn’t really like. The boys experienced a lot on this journey, but then returned home. Tom and Huck had a dream. They wanted to find a treasure. The boys came up with a game for themselves. They were looking for treasures hidden in the cave. When they found them, Huck received a lot of money and became equal to Tom. But then Huck stopped liking being rich.

A widow took him in and forced him to go to school. The kind woman washed and brushed Huck and gave him clean clothes. Tom understood Huck, but he didn’t want to change anything, everything suited him. The boys valued their friendship, although they could quarrel. This happened when Tom fell in love with a girl. Her name was Betty. Huck didn't like Betty because she was well-mannered and always wore clean clothes. But I think Huck just didn't want to lose a friend like Tom. Tom and Huck were real friends. They were able to fulfill their dream. They found the treasure and helped catch the criminals.

I think that the boys' friendship will not disappear when they become adults. I would also like to have a friend like Huck or Tom. Such friends will always tell you the truth and be able to support you in difficult times.

The novel “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”: materials for analysis

Books about Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, being the artistic pinnacles of Twain's work, certainly belong to the world classics. Almost every generation of children reads them, perceiving the characters in the novels as their spiritual companions. At the same time, this is not only “children’s” reading. When considering “Tom Sawyer,” it is useful to keep in mind one important circumstance for the writer: Twain was constantly in creative search, never repeated himself, and varied his style and themes. A book of documentary essays (and he constantly traveled and recorded his travel impressions) was usually followed by fiction. The writing of “Tom Sawyer” was preceded by the publication of a small essay book “Old Times on the Mississippi” (1875), where he recalled, not without nostalgic sadness, his profession as a pilot, his youth and the great river that he loved so much. It was a kind of prologue to Tom Sawyer. The novel, as it became obvious later, became the first part of an autobiographical trilogy, the writing of which lasted almost 10 years. It also included the essay and non-fiction book “Life on the Mississippi” and the novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

The trilogy is sometimes called the "epic of childhood". This was Twain’s “main book,” the most organic to his artistic methodology and philosophy of life. Twain remained most original in the reproduction of emotional sensations, feelings, actions, impressions and living memory images, in free associations. This was better for him than a strict composition, a consistently drawn idea or a philosophical concept.

This feature should be kept in mind when characterizing the poetics of the novel.

The peculiarities of Twain's worldview were, in particular, that the writer constantly had a warm, nostalgic feeling, and over the years he increasingly turned to the early days of his life. A critical perception of the surrounding reality, observations of human egoism, greed, and admiration for the power of the dollar made the bright pictures of childhood, perceived as a “natural state” with its naivety, purity and spontaneity, especially attractive. Twain managed to write about this in such a way that he was even called “the man of childhood.” The images, many episodes and paintings of his trilogy were fueled by vivid memories. In Twain's work, the autobiographical principle is generally expressed with great decisiveness. Of course, autobiography does not imply the reproduction of experiences or photographs of some real persons, but it does imply creative processing of the material. This position of a general methodological nature is applicable to Twain’s work.

Let us pay attention to the documentary basis of the novel. In the city of St. Petersburg, described in “Tom Sawyer,” one can discern the city of Hannibal in the 1840s, where the writer spent his childhood. Meticulous Twain scholars have identified “Twain places” captured in the text of the novel. For example, the house where Becky Thatcher lived has been preserved. Aunt Polly reveals traits of Twain's mother, dearly loved by the writer, some of whose features (luxurious hair, explosive temperament) he inherited. As for Tom himself, according to the novelist himself, he combined in him the features of three of his acquaintances during childhood. There is something of Twain himself in him.

1. What is the meaning of the title of the novel? Are the minor events in the lives of Tom Sawyer and his friends real adventures, or do children simply see them as such? Remember the textbook “beginning” of the novel. How does Twain immediately immerse the reader in the atmosphere of the novel, in the world of children's play?

Can we talk about the presence in the novel of a familiar composition with exposition, beginning and ending, as well as a persistently outlined plot? Or is this a freely constructed chain of scenes and episodes? Describe the three main plot points of the novel: the childish naive love of Tom and Becky; murder in a cemetery; treasure hunt.

2. How does provincial America appear under Twain’s pen? Are there any features of idyllicity in her description and what is this connected with?

What is the world of adults like, seen through the eyes of children? Why does it seem to children boring, insipid, consisting of prohibitions, full of dull morality associated with Sunday school?

3. What was Twain’s innovation in portraying children, especially Tom Sawyer? Was it by chance that the writer gave him the “mass-type” name Tom? How insightful and reliable is Twain in depicting the psychology and worldview of a child? Give examples.

Can we say that Twain is a children's writer, aimed “at children”, imitating their type of thinking? Or, like a great artist and psychologist, does he penetrate into the soul of a child, convey his perception of the world, and reproduce, as it were, a child’s point of view? Can we say that the picture of the world painted in the novel in its own way reflects the characteristics of the consciousness of a child who is not yet accustomed to logical thinking and has his own values? How accurate and truthful is Twain in depicting the games, fun, pranks, childhood superstitions and mythology that play such an important role in the lives of his heroes? Give examples. Show Twain's skill in reproducing lively children's dialogues, the language of children, which noticeably distinguished his works from those examples of literature in which children express themselves “like an adult,” unnaturally, in a linguistic manner unusual for them.

4. When characterizing Twain’s innovation, one must keep in mind that his novel appeared against the backdrop of countless books about children, sentimental, edifying, false, full of cliches and flat moralizing. Such examples of “children's fiction” featured stilted characters who illustrated theses about “good” and “bad” boys and girls. The latter, according to one critic, were as similar to real babies as gutted chickens in a store window to yellow lumps running across a green lawn. Even earlier, Twain had poked fun at this literary tradition in “The Tale of a Bad Boy” (1865) and “The Tale of a Good Boy” (1875).

In his novel, Twain parodies such common “products” aimed at the needs of “Sunday schools.” Try to detect elements of parody characteristic of Twain’s style in the text of the novel. In this regard, consider the image of Sid as an example of a “good boy”.

5. Illustrate Twain's art as a landscape painter. How do the world of children and the world of nature compare? How are they interconnected?

6. What are the features of the novel’s poetics? Why is Twain's methodology sometimes called "instinctive realism"? What is the reason for the overall light tone of the novel? What is its universal human pathos? Why is the book about Tom Sawyer one of the “eternal books”?