The setting of chapter 2 of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is described lyrically. It is a perfect summer day of blooming trees, fragrant blossoms and green grass. Tom is on the sidewalk outside his aunt's house, eying all this sunlit perfection with the melancholy of a captive.
The outline of the story is perhaps the most famous in American literature. Tom has been sentenced to whitewash the fence on a Saturday. He is upset because he has to work instead of playing and because other boys are certain to laugh at him. When Ben Rogers does just that, Tom hits upon the brilliant idea of pretending that whitewashing the fence is an honor and a privilege. He charges a sequence of boys for the opportunity to whitewash the fence for him and is able to lounge around in the shade while they work, amassing a vast collection of odds and ends which they offer as payment.
The genius of this system is that, once Tom has hit upon his solution, there is no further conflict. Everyone gets exactly what he wants, although the other boys did not realize that what they wanted was to whitewash a fence until Tom informed them of the fact. He has to pretend to a little conflict in order to make the boys want to whitewash the fence, since, as Twain observes, "in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain." For the purposes of doing business, however, this apparent conflict is swiftly overcome.
The setting is a beautiful, glorious Saturday morning. It is the kind of day when a boy like Tom wants to be out playing but instead has been punished by Aunt Polly. He has been set to work in front of her house to whitewash her picket fence.
The conflict is that Tom doesn't want to be doing this menial labor when he could be enjoying himself. Therefore, in an iconic and very famous scene, he uses his wits to persuade other boys that whitewashing a fence is an enviable task. He accomplishes this by acting as if the whitewashing is great fun and by showing extreme unwillingness to let others help. The text notes:
Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity [quick happiness] in his heart. And while the late steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents.
Tom realizes that by withholding an activity from others it becomes desirable. Eventually, boys are trading him things for the "privilege" of painting. The narrator tells us:
If he [Tom] had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
In Chapter 2 of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (entitled "Strong Temptations"), Tom is living with his Aunt Polly in a town in Missouri. His aunt assigns Tom the task of whitewashing the fence for having come home in dirty clothes the day before.
After giving the fence a couple of swipes with the whitewash, Tom decides he does not want to paint. Here lies his conflict. When the slave boy Jim passes by, Tom offers to fetch the water for him if he will paint for the time he is gone. But Jim will not agree to this deal, saying that he is afraid of his mistress. Then, Ben passes Tom as he pretends to be a steamboat with the engine roaring and bells ringing. Rather than pay attention to Ben, Tom pretends to be completely uninterested; instead, he focuses on the fence. After watching Tom seem to enjoy what he is doing, Ben asks Tom if he can paint. Tom ponders this offer; he then tells Ben that Jim longed to paint, as did Sid, but his aunt only wants him to do this painting. He acts reluctant to pass the fence job to anyone else for fear something will happen to it. "Oh, shucks," says Tom, and he gives Ben the "privilege" after Ben insists that Tom have the apple he has been carrying. "Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his heart."
When other boys happen along, Tom uses the same tactics on them, and by mid-afternoon, Tom has traded the next chance to paint to enough boys that the entire fence acquires three coats of whitewash. Tom has discovered a "great law of human nature"; namely,"in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain." He has also discovered that "work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do." Tom has solved his conflict of not wishing to paint by making the others believe that they were engaged in something pleasurable as they painted for him.
No comments:
Post a Comment