The novel describes the hero's boyhood in St Petersburg, a village on the Mississippi. Tom, who lives with his brother Sid and his Aunt Polly, is constantly playing truant from home and school. With two friends, Joe Harper and Huckleberry Finn, he disappears to an island where they live like Pirates. The three are presumed dead, and return just in time to attend their own funeral. Tom and Huck witness a murder in a graveyard. Later, Tom saves Muffin Potter from being executed by confessing his innocence. Tom and Becky Thatcher, the girl he loves, nearly die when they become lost in a network of caves. At the end of the book, Tom and Huck become rich beyond their dreams, having unearthed a treasure-chest that is among the swag of Injun Joe,
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Known as the "bad-boy book, " this kind of books can be said to originate with Thomas Bailey Aldrich's The Story of a Bad Boy and continue through Stephen Crane's Whihmville Stories (Hendler 34). The novel depicts characters and situations that appear to be drawn from real life. It belongs to realism which was a famous trend in the nineteenth century literature. Despite the romantic portrayal of children’s adventures, most of the children are themselves, not romanticized ("Themes"). Mark twain had emphasized his own youthfulness and naiveté and for him to move from young adulthood to boyhood was natural. He was aware that he could write, without notes or reminders, fiction based on his own childhood. The result was Tom sawyer who is a version of Sam Clemens the boy, innocent but mischievous, tinted with literary romanticism. The ideas of his early sketches about good boys and bad boys preserved in Sketches New and Old (1875) inspired him to write this novel. Interestingly, Twain was not revising an earlier account, working from his brother's notes, editing someone else's reports, or working with a partner; he was relying on his memories: of his mother for Tom's Aunt Polly; of the cave where the real "Injun Joe" had been lost (but did not starve); of the schoolhouse. He confirmed in more than one
Known as the "bad-boy book, " this kind of books can be said to originate with Thomas Bailey Aldrich's The Story of a Bad Boy and continue through Stephen Crane's Whihmville Stories (Hendler 34). The novel depicts characters and situations that appear to be drawn from real life. It belongs to realism which was a famous trend in the nineteenth century literature. Despite the romantic portrayal of children’s adventures, most of the children are themselves, not romanticized ("Themes"). Mark twain had emphasized his own youthfulness and naiveté and for him to move from young adulthood to boyhood was natural. He was aware that he could write, without notes or reminders, fiction based on his own childhood. The result was Tom sawyer who is a version of Sam Clemens the boy, innocent but mischievous, tinted with literary romanticism. The ideas of his early sketches about good boys and bad boys preserved in Sketches New and Old (1875) inspired him to write this novel. Interestingly, Twain was not revising an earlier account, working from his brother's notes, editing someone else's reports, or working with a partner; he was relying on his memories: of his mother for Tom's Aunt Polly; of the cave where the real "Injun Joe" had been lost (but did not starve); of the schoolhouse. He confirmed in more than one