Sublime Nature in Tom Sawyer

So far in the book, I think there is only one instance of Sublime Nature that occurred when Tom, Huck, and Joe, were trapped in the fearful storm on Jackson Island. Prior to this event, the boys were swimming in the water, making breakfast, relaxing, and smoking pipes. Suddenly, the sky turned dark and the air became chilly: a very cliché foreboding of some imminent "evil". You can tell when the scene switches from the pastoral "harmonious with nature" to the Sublime quite easily from the conspicuous changes in setting mood. At the peak of the storm, all the boys could do was run and hide from the wrath of Sublime Nature. In the end, all three boys survived the battle. Why did Sublime Nature capriciously appear at this specific time? There are two ways you can think about this: First, Nature was trying to force the boys back to their designated positions in civilized society by attempting to scare them off with the fearful storm. Second, Nature was putting the boys through a test to see if they were fit for becoming one with Nature.

Tom Sawyer Passage Analysis

I want to analyze the passage where Tom and his friends, Huckleberry Finn and Joe Harper, decide to leave the town and become outlaws. They began by traversing the Mississippi River to a small, inhabited island: a good example of a relatively untouched nature. After the outlaws had been being missing for a few days, the townspeople began to worry and "tears were being shed" (111). Yet, all the townspeople could do was release white smoke from the ferry-boat; no actual search effort (outside of the town) was performed. This shows that to the townspeople, the boundary of their efforts is nature itself. Ironically, the town and the townspeople have become the outlaws' boundaries. As outlaws, the kids made an agreement to live a life of crime away from all civilized life. Therefore, Tom had to covertly sneak off the island to see Aunt Polly, otherwise he would be seen by his friends as a deserter of their agreement. But one must notice that neither boundaries are permanent. The townspeople have the ability/technologies (ferry-boat) to cross the river and search for the missing kids, and the kids have the ability to swim back to the town and abandon their lives as outlaws. This teaches us an important lesson: there are no absolutes or true boundaries in life.