Tom Sawyer and the adventures of childhood innocence

¶ … Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Maria Tatar, a professor of German at Harvard, is partial to the Tales of the Brothers Grimm, who she claims purged the collection of references to sexuality but left in "lurid portrayals of child abuse, starvation, and exposure and fastidious descriptions of cruel and unusual punishments, including cannibalism" (Showalter Pp). Says Tatar, "Giants, ogres, stepmothers, cooks, witches, and evil mothers-in-law are driven by a ravenous appetite for human fare" (Showalter Pp). Indeed fairy tales always possess the elements of evil, whether in the form of monsters, step-mothers, or sorcerers. The list of how evil is presented in fairy tales is endless. However, one thing is for certain and that is there is always a duel between good and evil within the fairy tale motif.

Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" possesses many elements of the fairy tale motif. However Stanley Brodwin sees it as an "Edenic hymnal fairy tale ... another version of the natural in the world of youth clinging to and playing out its instincts and the need for adventure" (Bush Pp). Brodwin describes the story's two main characters, Tom and Huck, as "profoundly Adamic," and claims that Twain is aligning youth with nature and an Edenic state of grace that they will eventually succumb to due to the influence of civilization as they become adults (Bush Pp). However, what Brodwin fails to point out is that Twain's story is filled with "large doses of murder, mayhem, darkness, thunder, lightning, ghosts, and outlaws," all of which point more to the fairy tale motif than a Edenic work, unless of course one views the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden as possessing the fairy tale motif as well. Twain once wrote that remembering Hannibal was like "bathing in the Fountain of Youth" (Bush Pp).

Aunt Polly is certainly the fairy godmother in Twain's novel. She loves Tom unconditionally and is there for him at every turn. In fact, she can barely, if ever, bring herself to punish him even when discipline would be fitting. She is the symbol of everything good and wholesome in life.

Injun Joe is certainly the villain or ogre of the story. Although Twain sprinkles the his story with bits of his personal history, such as the way he has been treated by society, it certainly does not justify his actions. Moreover, Joe shows no remorse for his crimes, and therefore can be considered true evil. Injun Joe also possesses the magical elements of the evil sorcerer or witch, such as changing his appearance, as he does when Tom and Huck see him disguised as a deaf-mute Spaniard. And added to this is the magic element of disappearing and then reappearing, as he does throughout the novel, which not only lends itself to the fairy tale motif.

Twain includes many fairy tale elements to his novel. The first of which is the graveyard scene, where Tom and Huck have gone to perform a wart cure ritual. And it is here where they witness Injun Joe committing a murder.

Graveyards are always depicted in children's tales as places of unspeakable terror and horror, and thus, Twain uses it in his novel as the backdrop for murder. This scene also seems to reinforce the boys' belief in superstition and their obsession with the 'other world' of ghosts and witches and the like.

The second appearance of Injun Joe is in the haunted house, where Tom and Huck have gone hunting for buried treasure. Here Joe has changed his appearance to one of the deaf-mute Spaniard. Again the element of evil sorcery, a haunting. Moreover, the boys witness something else they should not see, Joe digging up a treasure. Not only have the boys gone to a haunted house in search of buried treasure, but they happen upon the graveyard murderer disguised, much as an evil witch would disguise herself as something else to tempt her prey.