Tom Sawyer

 Time
 Author's Note;It is often hard to give up the joy of childhood but eventually we all need to.  Don't      feel like I'm trying to insult the book or the author.  I don't mind if you have a different opinion, in fact I would really like to hear it. 


In life there is one thing that no matter how much we wish it isn't,  it is always here, haunting our every move.  It's name is reality.  To be out of tune with it makes you vulnerable to pain, deep, depressing pain of which nobody can relieve you of.  To live with reality by your side rather than behind your back you will take major steps in life and never will you have to worry about tripping because you have reality to help you up.  In that age we call childhood reality simply doesn't exist, as with Tom Sawyer.   Nightmares are over as soon as the morning sun shines through your window.  Unfortunately childhood ends  and eventually we must accept that otherwise you just might just be reality's next target.      

Wouldn't we all love to live a life with no troubles, with no pain or sorrow?  We all know that our days on this earth are numbered and to live them to their fullest,  so why give up all your hopes and dreams from  childhood when you reach a certain age? The answer is simply this; the world is a cruel place and to have people take you seriously you need to live in reality, not dreamland.  Tom Sawyer is the perfect child in all ways shapes and forms, and to him, life is an adventure, a treasure yet to be discovered a land soon to be inhabited.  He is the child that everyone wishes they were with no sense of discipline, only wanting more than the world could give him.  When Tom and Huck return home after running away and leading everyone to believe they are dead they are welcomed with open arms and gratitude thick with hugs and kisses.  A discipline would be unthinkable, I mean after all they did come home, but the true question to ask is why. Why did they come home? They wanted what every child seems to want more of: attention.  In this book, what Tom wants, Tom gets, but in real life, if you live by that moral,  you would only be looked down upon  by others as the selfish one who never grew up

Although childhood is often  of our lives there is a time when you just have to grow up and think normally.  Unfortunately those of us who lived the perfect childhood find it almost impossible to leave it all in the past.  Huck Finn seems to be surviving alone on the food that others give him and the education that he catches from his friends.  Later in life there will be no widow to take him in or to offer him supper.  There is just no patience in today's time to accept people like that, nobody wants to feed a full grown man as they would a child.  Deprived of an education as a child will lead a very unpleasant future.  Becky doesn't see wrong, to her everyone is perfect, every moment is perfect, even in the toughest of times she sees through the eyes of innocence.   It is almost like Santa Claus, it I cute as a child, but eventually people just tell you to grow up.  To see everything as perfect will most certainly annoy those around you as the world is not perfect, far from it.  Tom has had no discipline, his line between right and wrong has been scratched and crossed so many times he won't even know where it is anymore.  As an adult a direct knowing of right and wrong is necessary and self discipline is key. There is nobody to tell you that you shouldn't rob a bank just because you think that it would be fun, or inform you that putting a worm in your bosses lunch will get you fired.   People like the characters in this book don't get very far in life, and they end up irresponsible obnoxious human beings rather than  cute children. 

Time in general is simply an afterthought in a child's mind, they don’t need clocks or watches because they have people to tell them when it is time.  Time only interrupts playtime and play overrules all other factors in a fantasy .  Later is nonexistent for there is only now and to live each day like your last without a care in the world.  There are no days, weeks, years, there is only now, and now is forever , and forever is now.

Chapter 31

Recently I have found that sometimes whether or not someone  will like a certain chapter depends upon whether or not the reader can connect to it.  Often I find stories where I can connect to the characters and their feelings more appealing.  Often, authors use fright as a connection that most readers can take in a variety of ways.

Fear is also like the fishing pole to a reader in this chapter.  The reader often knows that the bait is just a trick yet that still can't convince them not to take a huge mouthful of it.  That is what it felt like to me in this chapter; I knew that Tom and Becky weren't going to die, but I still fell for it.  The extensive  descriptions and the extreme discomfort Tom and Becky seem to rub off on me as they take on the toughest of challenges for survival and sanity.   It was truly a nightmarish vision on starving, slowly the life draining out of them until there was almost nothing left.  Shivers ran down my spine when they saw Injun Joe, they wouldn't have  the strength to run from him if he  did reveal a knife.  I think that Injun Joe would have killed them both if he too wasn't suffering from starvation.  Of all the horrible choices that Tom has made in this book the one to leave Becky and go exploring on his own was both the worst and best at the same time.  Best because he got them out and worst because there was always the issue of getting lost again if he ran out of string.  I found Tom and Becky's escape totally unrealistic because what are the odds that there would be a boat right there, right then that was willing to take them back to their town?  I say that they would be pretty slim.  Although this chapter was crazy and weird, I still do like it that Tom and Becky made it back just like I knew that they would. 

I enjoyed this chapter but I would suggest that they stretch it over the course of maybe 3 or 4 chapters instead of just one because it was a lot of content to take in for one chapter.  Of all Tom's adventures this one was definitely the one that they were all leading up to. It was a great chapter but I figure that the rest will be just as boring as the first ones, and as many generations that pass, Tom Sawyer will always be "that book I  read when I was a kid" type of  classic.