Children's Literature- (Week sixteen) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

1.          Content: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is an 1876 novel about a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River.

2.          Mark Twain:

Ø   Samuel Langhorne Clemens better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist.

Ø   His pen name came from his years working on Mississippi riverboats. The "mark twain" meaning" The water is 12 feet (3.7 m) deep and it is safe to pass."

3.          Characters:

Ø   Literary realism, in contrast to idealism, attempts to represent familiar things as they are.

Ø   Realist authors chose to depict everyday and banal activities and experiences, instead of using a romanticized or similarly stylized presentation.

Ø   Stendhal’s best known for the novels The Red and the Black.

5.          Initiation Journey:

Ø   每一次的旅程都對Tom有所成長。

Ø   Three main quests about The Adventures of Tom Sawyer:

A.        第一次的冒險是和哈克夜訪墓地，不小心目睹印第安喬殺人，原本兩人賭咒發誓絕不說出真相，湯姆無視於自身安危與朋友誠信，堅持秉持良心出庭作證。

B.         第二次的冒險是為了抗議大人們的冤枉，湯姆領著哈克和哈潑，偷了戰備糧，躲到小島上玩海盜遊戲，不管他潛回家中時，親眼看到波麗阿姨多麼傷心，仍然刻意逍遙了一個星期才回來參加自己的喪禮。

C.         第三次的冒險是又和哈克，去鬼屋尋幽卻撞見死對頭印第安喬，居然沒告訴大人財寶箱的黃金，自己繼續計畫追蹤挖寶。我們從小說剛開始嘻嘻哈哈的湯姆，看他經歷艱難險阻後，從經驗法則中學習到家庭與社區族群的可貴。雖然不羈的本性難改，至少他不再逃家，甚至力勸哈克回歸體制內的安逸，給道格拉斯寡婦收養。

Ø   Initiation is a rite of passage marking entrance or acceptance into a group or society.

Ø   In mythology and literature, a quest, a journey towards a goal, serves as a plot device and as a symbol.

6.          Bildungsroman:

Ø   A Bildungsroman novel of formation, novel of education, or coming of age story is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood, in which character change is extremely important.

Ø   The Adventures of Tom Sawyer不太算是教育小說，而是主角在故事事件中受到教育有成長與進步。

Ø   The birth of the Bildungsroman is normally dated to the publication of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang Goethe.