Tom Sawyer Essay

Sitting on the park bench, next to the most boring tree on the block, there I am – wishing for something eventful to happen today. If I had an imagination, maybe I could actually do something fun for a change. I already tried telling my dim-witted parents that I was bored out of mind, but they said to go play with a rock outside; turn it into a pet were their exact words. I wish, just once, that something would spark into my head that will give me an idea about how to make something special happen. At one point in every kid’s life, they start to develop a new type of imagination. When a person is in the toddler stage of their life, their imagination isn’t very in depth – there are usually just some scrawny pictures with no color. Once they reach the time in their cycle where they start to develop a little bit more, the imagination runs wild and starts to almost become it’s own; whether it be good or bad. Every kid needs an imagination and if they don’t have one, then many things could go wrong.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is a great book for telling children about what kind of things can go on inside of a pre-teenager’s mind at times. When Tom Sawyer finally gets sick of just living his normal, boring life, he brightens up his day by running away to an island with his best friends – Huckleberry Finn and Joe Harper – and imagining that they are terrifying pirates who rule the world. The boys finally get sick of eating stolen food, even though each person thought that this type of adventure was fun, but every child who lives with someone else that they love, are sure to get homesick. Tom drew up an illustriously brilliant plan to come home and surprise everyone at his own funeral, but that was just his imagination kicking in, because no other child in the 1800’s would have ever thought about that. Each and every person’s brain is wired differently, and that is why each one has special thoughts separated from others.

There was one other illustration of a really well-detailed scene in this book that I found to be relevant – when Tom and Huckleberry go treasure hunting. First of all, Tom is so concise where he thinks that treasure will be found, and once it gets dark out, both of the boys start to get frantic about ghosts and witches behind them. Huckleberry says, “Here this time of night with witches and ghosts a-fluttering around. I feel as if something’s behind me all the time, and I’m afraid to turn around becuz whatever’s in front of me is a-waiting for a chance to snatch me up.” In the next scene where they must hide because they hear voices, Tom is suddenly silent for once, and then his mind plays a little trick on him, and he thinks that a rat has just scurried across the top of his foot. As time runs on, the boys figure out Injun Joe’s plan; and since Tom has such a vivid imagination, there are so many possibilities that he could have came up with.

While all men and women mature, their imagination begins to become more complex, but also more reasonable. At one point, they may be seeing a child riding on a pink unicorn, but then once the dream of you as a child riding on a pony abruptly stops, you think of a fully-grown adult, galloping away into the sunset on a tall, black stallion. Everybody matures at their own paces, so there are many different reasons why people are dissimilar than others.