Growth in Tom Sawyer Essay

Tom Sawyer

The Adventure of Tom Sawyer is a partial non-fictional book about a young boy, Tom, and his childish life style. Tom is always getting himself into trouble wherever he turns but yet always gets himself out of it. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain uses conflict to define the transfer from a young boy to a young man.

In one of the most iconic scenes in the book, Tom is told to complete his whitewashing of the fence outside his house. He has to do this tedious task because he was caught lying and doing bad things, so his Aunt, Polly, put him up to the job. Within ten minutes of whitewashing, Tom is already bored out of his mind and wants to be completed. He then spots a young boy, around his age, to coax him to help Tom. Tom says, Like it? Well I dont see why I oughtnt to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day? Tom ends up getting out of his job while also getting many gifts, ones such as toys and food in return.

Another childish thing Tom does was when him and his friend tried to skip school. Tom ends up getting caught by his Aunt. He then complains about his loose tooth some more. Polly pulls out the tooth and sends him off to school late. Not even caring about his lateness, Tom now has a pulled tooth to show everyone and brag about. Later that day Tom even goes for this new girl in his life, Becky Thatcher. He tries to talk to her and persuade her to be with him. While in the process of giving Becky the works he ended up hurting his ex, Amys heart. Amy still had a liking to Tom but he did not know.

The final and most important Segway to his manhood is when Tom and his best friend, Huckleberry Finn, witness a murder. While the wrongly accused drunk was on trial about to be hung, Tom breaks his bond of keeping secret with Huck. He exclaims, Wait! It is not the drunk but Injun Joe! Joe ends up running off and goes into hiding. Not too late for the heroic duo, Tom and Huck, to chase this man down. They end up following him to a cave. They capture him while also discovering a very large treasure in the process that the boys have been looking for the whole time.

While starting off childish and manipulative, Tom finally grows up and completes a task most men could not. Through all of his mishaps and close calls, Tom was growing up faster than he knew. His transfer from this childish boy to heroic man was fast but also well deserving for such a young boy.