Adventures of Tom Sawyer

I was pleased about this week’s reading, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, because it's about a young boy. One thing I have noticed throughout the texts this semester, when comparing boys and girls, is that boys are much more exciting! Instead of reading three pages about picking out bibles we actually have some climax to the stories. It may be a little unfair that boys are portrayed as such fun, carefree, independent characters whereas girls are boring, modest, and rely too much on the adults around them. However, in the nineteenth century I think these stories suited each gender's role in society. Stories about boys like Tom seem to have made bigger history than stories about girls. We have all heard of Tom Sawyer, and even without reading it we can picture him as a wild child whose clever tricks get him through life as someone everyone knows and can't help love or aspire to be like. We see later depictions of characters like Tom in stories and films like Dennis the Menace. One example in Adventures of Tom Sawyer of Tom's rambunctious nature comes from page 317 when he almost gets away with skipping school to go swimming by sewing a dry collar onto his shirt, but he uses the wrong thread and Sid rats him out. Tom states, "She'd never noticed if it hadn't been for Sid. Confound it!" then goes on to say "But I bet you I'll lam Sid for that. I'll learn him!" Tom truly does act like a little menace, but since he's a young boy it’s expected so the audience loves him for it.