An Exploration Of Youth

Tad Scheibe
Eighth Grade English
Section One
Tom Sawyer Essay
11-5-14

"There comes a time in every rightly-constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire
 to go somewhere and dig  for hidden treasure. This desire suddenly came upon Tom one day."
Mark, Twain. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

       Nothing compares to adrenaline pumping through you during an adventure. In the book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain illustrates many heart pounding adventures. Twain is able to make raw emotion come out of his writing It is the thrill of knowing that your life might be in peril that makes the scenes from Tom Sawyer such exemplary pieces of writing. In one scene Tom and Huck set out at noon on a Friday to look for treasure. After deciding that they couldn't go to the dead tree grove Tom and Huck hightail it to an old house that the town has deemed haunted. While there Tom and Huck are searching upstairs when they here strange noises coming from down in the entrance hall. This scene is sure to send shivers down everyone's spines. 

     Imagine you are knee deep in a hole, a hole that you have spent many ours digging. Your back is burning, you can feel the knots that will most definitely leave you sore tomorrow building up. Your hands are blistered, you're sunburned and you have found nothing. Why would you continue? The answer is simple to Tom Sawyer... because it's an adventure. To him, what could be better than being out in the sun with a friend looking for treasure? Nothing. This is part of Toms youthful soul. It is this aspect that has lead Tom through his entire life; his youthful soul has a need for adventure. That need will need him to many places!

“Sh!" said Tom.
"What is it?" whispered Huck, blanching with fright.
"Sh!... There!... Hear it?"
"Yes!... Oh, my! Let's run!"
"Keep still! Don't you budge! They're coming right toward the door."
The boys stretched themselves upon the floor with their eyes to knotholes in the planking, and lay waiting, in a misery of fear.
"They've stopped.... No—coming.... Here they are. Don't whisper another word, Huck. My goodness, I wish I was out of this!
[The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain, Chapter XVI]

Here Twain gives you a heart pounding experience from one of Toms adventures; he is telling us that Tom has a crazy adventures, and he uses this dialogue between Huck and Tom to get his point across. In this scene we can see why Tom Sawyer has stayed around for so long; it is the way that Twain wraps the reader into the book that makes it so hard to put down. Tom and Huck have a sense of fear and adrenaline as they hear the voices, and twain makes sure that you do to. This adventure that Tom Sawyer goes on not only includes him and Huck, but also the reader. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a well written, and is an entertains way to enjoy the thrills of youth
     
        The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer acts as a gateway back ones youth. Tom Sawyer contains the quality of someone who has the rest of his life to figure things out. This can be refreshing to people because he acts as a path to their childhood. Tom has what Mark Twain describes as "the elastic heart of youth". After his engagement to Becky is ruined when she finds out that she is not the first girl he has been a engaged to Tom slips into a sort of melancholy attitude. He seems to be so deep in the pit of despair that he will never be able to pull himself out, but then the most fantastic thing happens. Toms youthful vibes start to seep back into his heart purging it of the darkness he has been nursing. He seems to start to think that there is no reason to let one girl hold down his ambitions, he has the rest of  his life laid out in front of him. Tom can't let one girl stop the rest of his life and in Toms opinion his opportunities are endless

"But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time. Tom presently began to drift insensibly back into the concerns of this life again. What if he turned his back, now, and disappeared mysteriously? What if he went away -- ever so far away, into unknown countries beyond the seas -- and never came back any more!"  
[The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Chapter VIII Mark Twain]

In this scene Mark Twain is emphasizing the importance of youth in Tom Sawyer; he is telling us that Tom has a youthful heart, and he uses a metaphor to emphasize that Toms mind is playful, and will repair itself. It is this freeing aspect of Toms personality that we see in this scene that attracts people so strongly. a reader can see their childhood, and, in a way, relive it. Tom Sawyer is a spirit of youth, he embodies what it means to be young. You can see this in how his begrudged mind snaps back into a cheerful one. This makes people drawn to the story, the fact that Tom has been around so long is partially because he acts as a way back to being young. Scenes like the one above provide perfect examples of how to get back to ones childhood. If Tom was a god he would be the god of mischief, innocence, and curiosity. These are the characteristic that make up what it is to be a child. As we see in the scene after the Becky fiasco Tom's mind is the ultimate embodiment of youth. 

    The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a book that has captivated people for many years; it is filled with the thrilling adventures of a youthful soul, and explores the characteristics of childhood.  These aspects of Tom Sawyer will keep it alive both as you're reading and through the years on the shelf