The Adventures of Tom Sawyer | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 11 pages of analysis & critique of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 11 pages of analysis & critique of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
This section contains 3,190 words
(approx. 11 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Barry A. Marks

SOURCE: "Mark Twain's Hymn of Praise," in English Journal, Vol. XLVIII, No. 8, November, 1959, pp. 443-8.

Marks is an American educator and the editor of a critical anthology on Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In the following essay, Marks argues that, while Tom Sawyer begins by satirizing social convention, the novel ends with an affirmation of the human need for society.

"A hymn, put into prose form to give it a worldly air" is the way Mark Twain once described Tom Sawyer, and of course he was right. The book is a song of praise and adoration—not only of the Mississippi Valley in the mid-nineteenth century but of life itself. One way of alluding to the novel's special dimensions is to note that it becomes a hymn rather than is a hymn. It begins in tones of amused cynicism and only becomes joyful affirmation as the...

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This section contains 3,190 words
(approx. 11 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Barry A. Marks
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Critical Essay by Barry A. Marks from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.