"Every publisher of the vile sensational papers for boys is shaping the career of the youth of our country. They glorify crime; the hero of each story is a boy who has escaped the restraints of home and entered on a life of crime."
~Anthony Comstock qtd. in Steven Mailloux's "The Bad-Boy Boom," page 44
Twain really satirizes this in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This seems to be the entire basis for the character Tom Sawyer. The character Huckleberry Finn is more so one of the characters spoken against in the culture of this time. Tom seems to be worse than Huck, though, simply because his plan in the end--though following through with it knowing that Jim is already free--causes more mayhem than Huck would have caused on his own. Huck may not know that Jim is free at this point, but morally he realizes that Jim should be free and he wants to make that so. His inclination for how to go about it makes more sense and would cause much less trouble than Tom's.
Comments (1)
I agree. I see a distinct difference between Tom and Huck. Maybe it's one of those relationships where they seem to balance each other out.
I love to see how "pop culture" of a certain time frame affects society. Huck Finn influenced boys to become "bad" just as Harry Potter has influenced a great interest in wizards. (Granted being a "bad boy is much more realistic than being a wizard.)
Posted by Meagan Gemperlein | October 27, 2009 12:24 PM
Posted on October 27, 2009 12:24