Week 16: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
1. Introduction
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is an 1876 novel about a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River. It is set in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, inspired by Hannibal, Missouri, where Twain lived.
2. Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called "The Great American Novel".
*The "Great American Novel" is the concept of a novel that shows the culture of the United States of America at a specific time.
*His becoming a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River--Twain
Twain was born shortly after a visit by Halley's Comet, and he predicted that he would "go out with it", too. He died the day after the comet returned. He was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age", and William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature".
3. Literary realism&Initiation& Bildungsroman
(1) Literary realism is part of the realist art movement beginning with mid nineteenth-century French literature (Stendhal), and Russian literature (Alexander Pushkin) and extending to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Literary realism, in contrast to idealism, attempts to represent familiar things as they are. Realist authors chose to depict everyday and banal activities and experiences, instead of using a romanticized or similarly stylized presentation. Literary critic Ian Watt, however, dates the origins of realism in United Kingdom to the early 18th-century novel. Subsequent related developments in the arts are naturalism, social realism, and in the 1930s, socialist realism.
(2) Initiation is a rite of passage marking entrance or acceptance into a group or society. It could also be a formal admission to adulthood in a community or one of its formal components. In an extended sense it can also signify a transformation in which the initiate is 'reborn' into a new role. Examples of initiation ceremonies might include Hindu diksha, Christian baptism or confirmation, Jewish bar or bat mitzvah, acceptance into a fraternal organization, secret society or religious order, or graduation from school or recruit training. A person taking the initiation ceremony in traditional rites, such as those depicted in these pictures, is called an initiate.
*往往是主角開始一段旅程，受到啟迪，人性發生變化，成熟進步，which can be called initiation journey.
Freemasonry initiation
(3) In literary criticism, a Bildungsroman, novel of formation, novel of education, or coming-of-age story (though it may also be known as a subset of the coming-of-age story) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood (coming of age), and in which, therefore, character change is extremely important.
(4) Goethe's Faust is a tragic play in two parts usually known in English as Faust, Part One and Faust, Part Two. Although rarely staged in its entirety, it is the play with the largest audience numbers on German-language stages. Faust is Goethe's magnum opus and considered by many to be one of the greatest works of German literature.
The community’s assessment of Tom in Chapter 24, after his testimony against Injun Joe, implicitly acknowledges the close relationship between Tom’s misbehavior and his heroism. If Tom had not sneaked out at night to carouse in the cemetery with Huck, he would never have been present to witness Dr. Robinson’s murder—as by all rights he should not have been. Tom’s consistently bold and risky behavior puts him in the position to save the day. Distinguishing himself from the conventional, run-of-the-mill behavior that is accepted as the standard in his community is an achievement that cuts both ways, as it makes Tom exceptional in both the good and the bad sense: an extreme character like his is bound to lead either to greatness or to ignominy; as the town puts it, he either will become president or hang.
(2)Huck Finn’s wealth and the fact that he was now under the Widow Douglas’s protection introduced him into society no, dragged him into it, hurled him into it—and his sufferings were almost more than he could bear. The widow’s servants kept him clean and neat, combed and brushed….He had to eat with knife and fork; he had to use napkin, cup, and plate; he had to learn his book, he had to go to church; he had to talk so properly that speech was become insipid in his mouth;whithersoever he turned, the bars and shackles of civilization shut him in and bound him hand and foot.
This passage from Chapter 35 is perhaps the clearest description of the way Huck’s life changes after the Widow Douglas takes him in. Though told by the narrator rather than by Huck himself, the passage nevertheless renders the situation as it appears through Huck’s eyes. This technique—rendering a limited, childish point of view as though it were objective—is one Twain uses throughout the novel to help us identify with the boys more than with the adults of the town. Much of the force of Twain’s heavily nostalgic narrative comes from the way it tugs at the memories most adult readers have stored away, however deeply, of what it was like to be a child. We are thus able to view the events of the novel from a double perspective: from a child’s point of view and from a wider perspective that sees the limitations of that view and, most likely, its charm as well. The ordinary quality of the things the Widow Douglas compels Huck to do is meant to shock us out of our own assumptions. We realize afresh how unorthodox Huck’s life has actually been. This realization in turn forces us to contemplate more intently the way a life of normalcy could feel like a prison after a life of such radical freedom.
In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy , also known as Helen of Sparta, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and was a sister of Castor, Pollux, and Clytemnestra. In Greek myths, she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world.
Her beauty inspired artists of all time to represent her, frequently as the personification of ideal beauty. Christopher Marlowe's lines from his tragedy Doctor Faustus (1604) are frequently cited: "Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" Images of her start appearing in the 7th century BC. In classical Greece, her abduction by—or elopement with—Paris was a popular motif. In medieval illustrations, this event was frequently portrayed as a seduction, whereas in Renaissance painting it is usually depicted as a rape by Paris.
6. Vocabulary and Phrases
(1) egg drop soup 蛋花湯
(2) puff 擬聲詞（呼呼）
(3) greed adj. 貪婪的
(4) sneak v. 偷偷溜進
swallow v. 吞下
nibble v. 小口吃
(5) pebbles n. 小石頭
(6) pain in the ass adj. 機車的
(7) launch v. 出發
(8) topless adj. 無頂的，樓塌的
(9) whitewash the fence 粉刷籬笆
(10) graveyard n. 墓地
(11) sibling rivalry 同胞手足之爭
(12) insect n. 昆蟲
arthropod 截足類動物
invertebrate 脊椎類動物
insecticide 殺蟲類
謀殺
homicide 殺人犯
suicide 自殺
genocide 種族屠殺
(13) wart n. 油
(14) charm n. 魔力，幸運符
(15) white trash 窮苦的白人
(16) keep sth from 不要找到......
(17) spill v. 灑
(18) claim(baggage claim) 機場取行李的地方
(19) pirate v./n. 海盜
parrot n. 鸚鵡
There was a parrot on a pirate's shoulder.
April apple
fake cake
fat cat
ten eggs
(20) suspect v. 可疑
to look
(21) encounter(面對) 遭遇
變成強有力的動詞
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