elements of Edgar Allan Poe's story, "The Gold Bug." Although in
1869 Twain claimed to dislike Thomas Bailey Aldrich's The Story
of a Bad Boy, many readers feel that he borrowed ideas from that
book, as well.
Thus, you shouldn't read Tom Sawyer as Twain's autobiography.
In fact, you even have to read Twain's real autobiography with a
grain of salt, for as he warns at the end of one chapter: "Now
then, that is the tale. Some of it is true."
The Hannibal of Twain's youth was a far rougher and shabbier
place than St. Petersburg, Twain's fictional version of his
hometown. A village on the American frontier, Hannibal had a
darker side, which Twain only hints at. As a boy, he nearly
drowned three times. He watched villagers
try--unsuccessfully--to hang an anti-slavery man. He witnessed
a hanging, and he watched a man burn to death in a jail cell.
He also saw two drownings, an attempted rape, as well as two
attempted and four actual murders.
Such experiences helped Twain to understand that life is not
a continuous holiday--even for children. Tom's nightmares are
one indication of that, as are Twain's angry asides about the
villagers' hypocrisies.
Twain doesn't dwell on life's darker side in this novel,
however. He wanted to write a light-hearted, entertaining book.
Yet woven through it are a number of themes that link it to
Twain's later, more philosophical works. (See "Themes" later in
this guide.)
As he grew older, Twain began to examine the less appealing
aspects of human nature more relentlessly. The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn (1885) is peopled with all types of evil,
stupid, or mean characters. The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
(1894), for all its humor, concerns man's corruptness.
The year Pudd'nhead Wilson was published, business reverses
forced Twain into bankruptcy. He embarked on a world tour,
lecturing for $1,000 a night. The success of that tour and of
Following the Equator, the travel book that came out of it,
enabled him to pay his debts.
As he moved toward the end of his life, Twain shed his comic
mask and confronted themes of evil and dishonesty with
increasing bitterness. This bitterness is evident in such works
as "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg," a story, and the
nonfiction tract, What Is Man?
Gnawing financial difficulties and family sorrows were partly
