American Literature The Advanture of Tom Shawyer - Mark Twain If you would like to download these slides, send me via: nguyenpuyen91@gmail.com with your purpose of download.

1. American Literature
Ly Ngoc Huy - Quach Minh Thanh
Nguyen Phuong Uyen -
Mark Twain -
The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer

2. 1. Author – Mark Twain
2. Interesting things about Mark Twain
3. Back ground of the novel – The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
4. Answer questions:
• [Question 6] Discuss Twain’s description of the village life
on Saturday morning.
• [Question 7] Discuss how Twain uses Southern dialect.

3. Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-
1910), a famous American lecturer, novelist, and writer.
Mark Twain is the most humorous writers in the United
States. He also is a very creative and attractive novelist.
Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri near the border and
at Mississippi river in which were connecting north and
south.
Notable works : The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (
1876), Life on Mississippi (1883), Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn ( 1885)

4.  The connection between Mark Twain and Halley’s
comet
November 10th 1835 – April 20th
1910November 30th 1835 – April 21st
1910
The month when mark Twain was born, Halley’s Comet passed over. He
vowed that he wouldn’t die until he saw famous comet again. The just
before he died, the comet passed over. He died the next day.
Is that mystery or a nice coincidence ?

5.  His pen name
His pen name - Mark Twain came from his years working on Mississippi
riverboats, where two fathoms, a depth indicating safe water for passage
of boat, was measured on the sounding line. A fathom is a maritime unit of
depth, equivalent to two yards (1.8 m); Twain is an term for "two." The
river boatman's cry was mark twain or, more fully, by the mark twain,
meaning "according to the mark [on the line], [the depth is] two [fathoms],"
that is, "The water is 12 feet (3.7 m) deep and it is safe to pass."

6. • How famous Mark Twain was ?
Mark Twain was now regarded by many people as the foremost
American author. Certainly he was the most widely known. He was so
famous that fan letters addressed “Mark Twain” found their way to him.
“Mark Twain, United States,” was a common superscription
I am not an
American. I am
the American.
- Twain wrote this
quote in his
personal notebook
#41 for the year
1897.

7. The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is America’s
foremost award for humor, and has been awarded by the John
F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts annually since
1998.
• Mark Twain Award

8. Back ground of the novel:
• When Twain was four, his family moved to
Hannibal, Missouri. The lifetime in there
inspired Twain wrote the “Great American
Novel “ – The Adventure of Tom Sawyer
(1876).The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was
as reminiscences of his youth when he lived
in Hannibal.
• The port town on Mississippi River where
twain lived in childhood was the background
of fictional town of St. Petersburg in The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Tom Sawyer was
modeled on Twain as a child, with traces of
two schoolmates, John Briggs and Will
Bowen.
• Mark Twain describes excellently
characteristic, psychology and actions of an
innocent, mischievous but brave, humane and
upright boy.

9.  In this chapter, the Saturday morning was described by Mark Twain seems to be
a best wonderful day. The natural and the human were very full of vitality.
Twains used many beautiful phrase to described that such as : “ brimming with
life”, “song in every heart” , “ music issued at the lips” , “fragrance of the
blossoms”. On Saturday, villagers concentrate at the pump and follow the
description “White, mulatto and negro boys and girls were always there waiting
their turns, resting, trading playthings, quarrelling, fighting, skylarking.” (Page
101). It was like as a gathering of multicultural and became unusual culture in
the village where Mark Twains lived. It made a strong impression on Mark
Twain enough for him to bring it into this novel.

10.  Twain studied the dialect of his Missouri hometown, Hannibal and used the
local vocabulary and pronunciations so in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,
Mark Twain’s characters speak Southern dialect.
 "Spare the rod and spile the child…every time I hit him my old heart 'most
breaks". The quote reveals Twain's interest in dialect. "The Old Scratch" is
Southern dialect for the devil.
 “Tom, it was a middling warm in school, warn’t it?”
 “Can’t, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I got to go an’ git dis water an’
not stop foolin roun’wid anybody.”
 “Oh, I dasn’t, mars Tom. Ole missis she’d take an’ tar de head off’n me.
Deed she would.”
 The southern language seem to be remained in his memory. Using the
dialect is also the art of writing .By using Southern dialect; Mark Twain
made the picture of his old village as well as protagonists in the novel more
lively and sincere.

11. 1. Summary the content of two first chapters
2. Answer questions:
• [Question 1] How does Tome Sawyer change over the
course of the two chapters?
• Question 2] The characteristic of Polly Aunt and the
relationship with Tom?
• [Question 3] Trace Tom’s personality, paying close
attention to his relationship to the other children
• [Question 4] Analyze children’s psychology through Tom’s
conflict with the new – comer boy
• [Question 5] Discuss Twain’s issue of racism through his
depiction of Jim

12. SUMMARY THE CONTENT OF TWO FIRST CHAPTERS
In the chapter 1, Tom is an orphan child who lives with his Aunt Polly and his half-
brother, Sid and Aunt Polly’s young slave, Jim. The novel opens with Aunt Polly searches
throughout the house to find her nephew, Tom Sawyer. After deceiving his aunt to avoid her
punishment, Tom escapes over the fence. While wandering the streets of St. Petersburg, his town,
he encounters a newcomer, a boy in his own age who appears smart clothes and is haughty,
whom Tom had entered the fighting.
In the chapter 2, Aunt Polly sends Tom out a penalty on Saturday to paint the fence
instead of playing with his companions. Suddenly he has a great idea. Tom convinces his friends
that whitewashing a fence is great pleasure. After some bargaining, they agree to give Tom his
apple in exchange for the privilege of working on the fence. By the time the fence has three coats,
Tom has collected a hoard of miscellaneous treasures. Tom understands a great law of human
action that all it takes to make someone want something is to make that thing hard to get.

13. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

14.  According to two chapters of the story, we could see two main
characteristics of Tom Sawyer: the first is the innocence and
mischievousness of a small boy, the second is the cleverness of an adult
man.
 In the first chapter, Tom is an innocent boy with many normal
hobbies as all of children. He stole sugar of his aunt because of sweet desire
and skipped class to go swimming. He also tried to avoid work and escaped
punishments from his aunt. Especially, we can recognize that Tom is a
confident boy by the way he treated with his friend. Tom not only did not
scare when he talk with a stranger but also tried to win in the fighting.
 In the chapter 2, Tom showed us how smart he was while he tricked
other people to paint the fence. I thought that he was very smart, he had
ability to change punishment to award, tricked other people to work for him
and he also cheated them to get toys for himself. After all, Tom recognized a
great law of human action “in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it
is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain”

15.  In the story, the character Polly Aunt is Tom’s aunt and guardian. She
recognized her responsibility of taking care of Tom and helping him to become
a responsible adult.
 Aunt Polly is a simple, kindhearted woman who struggles to balance her love
for her nephew. However, she was strict and too much easily, she used hard
voice and “spared the rod and spile the child” to punish Tom Sawyer when he
was wrong but she generally fails in her attempts to keep Tom under control
because, although she worries about Tom’s safety, she seems to fear
constraining him too much. We could recognize that Aunt Polly really love Tom
much, she felt hurtful not only when she forgave him but also when she hit him.
“Every time I hit him,” she says, “my old heart most breaks.”

16.  Tom cheated his friends to get better things from them. He cheated Jim by
raising the curiousness (“Tom said…in her eye”; page 101), then exchange his
work to Ben for apples by bringing up the value of his work (“Tom went
on…in his heart”; page 102 & 103) and got some valuable things from some
of his friends by using his deceptive trick (“By the time…old window sash”;
page 103 & 104). After all, Tom is a sly, devastate, talkative and smart boy.

17.  As we know that children’s psychology is not grew enough when they are
young. It’s also true in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. When Tom saw the
new-comer boy on the street, he was very angry because the boy was opposite
to Tom. And when both of them were dared to do something by each other, they
tried to do these to prove that they are better than the other. Therefore, children
often want to be the best than the other and when they are dared, they will try
to do it. ( “A stranger was…for that boy”; page 97 & 100).

18.  Jim was not described clearly as protagonist Tom in two this chapters. He just
appears in several scenes (page 101 in the dialog with Tom). Based on Jim’s
vocative way- ”Mars Tom” we can know that Jim is a salve. And we got “Jim
never got back with a bucket of water under an hour – and even then
somebody generally had to go after him.” (Page 101)This detail showed the
racism in Tom’s village and it reflected the real situation at this time. Missouri
was one of the fifteen slave states when civil war broke out, so Twain grew up
among the racism and oppression of African Americans. Young twain became
familiar with situation slavery. So the racism was mentioned in his writers,
especially, in this novel just in order to increase the real of the story.