The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Visions of America Quotes Page 3
Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
| Quote #7 "You don't know me. Least you don't know all about that thing. 'Tain't robbery altogether -- it's revenge!" and a wicked light flamed in his eyes. "I'll need your help in it. When it's finished -- then Texas. Go home to your Nance and your kids, and stand by till you hear from me." (26.78) |
Tom Sawyer is set at a time when Texas was considered wild and unsettled, a perfect place for hiding from the law.
| Quote #8 When [Becky] pleaded grace for the mighty lie which Tom had told in order to shift that whipping from her shoulders to his own, the Judge said with a fine outburst that it was a noble, a generous, a magnanimous lie -- a lie that was worthy to hold up its head and march down through history breast to breast with George Washington's lauded Truth about the hatchet! (35.3) |
By the end of the book, Tom has attained the status of an American hero, at least in the eyes of Judge Thatcher.
| Quote #9 The widder eats by a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell -- everything's so awful reg'lar a body can't stand it." |
The Widow's regimen, and, most especially, Tom's defense of it, seems curiously at odds with the vision of boyhood, of specifically American boyhood, that Tom has come to represent.
