The Village and the Vale

Tom's home village is never named so that the reader can project his or her own images and/or memories of a safe, loving, friendly home community onto it. The placement of the town in a vale or valley symbolizes the idealized safety of "home," and creates the additional sense that for most of his childhood, Tom was protected. This vividly defined sense of gentleness and safety makes his transition into the more dangerous, challenging, rough and tumble world of Rugby School more significant to both Tom and the reader.

Rugby (the Town)

Rugby is a small, friendly town used to the frequent invasions of rambunctious boys from the school. Its presence in the boy's lives is simultaneously a refuge from the drudgery and hard work they go through at the school and a reminder of the outside world that awaits them once...