Book 3: Post 2

Hello again! As you might know, I have been reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. So far, I am around halfway through the book, and it reminds me of something familiar, The Catcher in the Rye. In that book, the main character Holden struggles with the transition from adolescence to adulthood, among other difficulties. In this book, the main character Tom seems to be struggling with the transition from childhood to adolescence. At the beginning of the book, he was generally making very childlike decisions about how to live his life, but so far, it seems like there is a change occurring inside of him as he goes on his adventures. Being a mischievous and curious child, Tom wanders around the town with his friends and in this way, he becomes interested in the more mature things people are doing around him. He is a friend of Huckleberry Finn (main character in another of Twain’s books), and is fascinated by Huck’s more mature, adolescent actions, and through this, begins to start making such decisions on his own. For example, when Tom asks Becky, a girl who he knows well, out on a date, he states, “Now it’s all done Becky. And always after this, you know, you ain’t ever to love anybody but me” (Twain 64). This shows a more mature side of Tom, rather than the childlike side I saw at the beginning of the book. I think we are going to see more development in Tom similar to this by the end of the book, but who knows, he could take a turn for the worse. I cannot wait to see how he turns out at the end. Since I find his development similar to Holden’s in The Catcher in the Rye, I am interested to keep reading to find out how his environment can influence his actions. Stay tuned for an update on this quite interesting topic!