Superstition

A response to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Thinking back on childhood, you can think of many instances of childish belief, and superstitions that now seem so irrational and impossible, that it’s hard to imagine that you yourself had once believed in such things. The truth is, however, that you did once believe in such things as black cats bringing bad luck and putting pennies in your shoes to make good things happen, and so went around stepping over cracks in the sidewalk and avoiding ladders at all costs. In Mark Twain’s book Tom Sawyer, every decision that Tom makes is affected by superstitions, from getting rid of warts to deciding whether or not he was going to get a new suit; he lost plenty of his prized marbles because of one superstition, and was saved from Injun Joe because of another. Superstitions are powerful things, affecting the decisions of those who believe in them, thus affecting the events of their lives, for better or worse.
Everyone in the romantic world of Tom Sawyer has a strong belief in the superstitions they use in every task they perform, even when their superstitious charms don’t work. When Tom loses some of his marbles, he relies on a supposedly fail-proof superstition, which makes all the marbles he ever lost come to collect in one spot, then blames a witch when he returns to his charmed spot and finds that the marbles have not returned after all. He doesn’t take into account the fact that he’d tried this trick several times before, and doesn’t bother to think why a witch would bother the charm him out of his marbles, if witches even exist. Then, to confirm his belief, Tom turns to yet another superstition, the informative ‘doodle bug’, and counts his suspicions as proved when that, too, fails, as the bug appears, only to dive back under the sand in fright at the sight of the boy in front of him. Even the adults in the book, who are supposed to be above such things, have their strong beliefs in superstitions; when the wound on the body of the dead doctor bled, the towns people took it to mean that Muff Potter was the murderer-though it turned out to be a false accusation-and used bread stuffed with quicksilver in the attempt to find the allegedly drowned boys, bringing forth fruitless results.
Strong beliefs in superstition can change or cause events in a person’s life. During the time Tom and Huckleberry Finn were digging for treasure, they postponed their hunt due to the day being Friday, as well as Huck having a nightmare about rats; both were bad signs in the boys’ superstition, so they stopped digging for the day rather than explore the haunted house, where Injun Joe would have caught them. The whole reason Injun Joe was even after Tom and Huck was because they had been in the graveyard at the time he murdered Doctor Robinson, trying to get rid of warts with an old superstition involving devils and a dead cat. If Tom and Huck had not gone to the graveyard, they wouldn’t have seen the ordeal and wouldn’t be witnesses of Injun Joe’s crimes and deceptions, which would mean Injun Joe wouldn’t have a reason to be after them. In the real world, people can go around avoiding ladders and black cats for most of their child hood, but, because they stayed away from these things, there was less of a chance of the ladder or something from the top of the ladder falling down on them, or of catching parasites or illnesses carried by stray cats. Either of these things would have had some kind of affect on the person’s life, though the affects probably wouldn’t be that dramatic.
The changes in the events of a person’s life due to superstition can be good or bad. The dead cat superstition caused Tom and Huck to sneak away during the night, which can be dangerous and would certainly get any boy in trouble, but because they were at the graveyard, they saw the murder, which made the two boys able to save Muff Potter from being hung. The cannon superstition the searchers used to look for the non-existent bodies of Tom, Huck, and Joe wasn’t very smart; shooting off a cannon at random poses more than just minor dangers, as the people shooting the cannon would find it difficult to see innocent bystanders that just happen to be boating down the river. However, the cannon showed the boys on the island that they really were missed, which led to Tom sneaking back home and hatching the plan that brought the three runaways home to a welcome fit for heroes. There’s many a time when children go out on adventures for four-leaf clovers or other superstitious talismans, and experience heartache when it’s discovered that the good luck charms aren’t magic after all, and the day’s been seemingly wasted by a wild goose chase in the park. While looking for these charms, however, a person can find so many other things; the beauty of nature, if looking in woods or parks, the importance of friendship if searching with a partner. Sometimes, though, the wonders along the journey are forgotten, wasted on the searcher, and the only thing gained is the knowledge that good luck charms are a hoax, often not even that, when the superstitious talismans aren’t found at all, resulting in an unhappy child, feeling betrayed by their beliefs.
Superstitions are white lies, imaginary beliefs, playing on the imagination, and affecting decisions of those who care to believe in them. Some have practical purposes; made up by adults trying to keep children out of trouble in ways they would understand better than simply being told, like walking under ladders or breaking mirrors. Others were most likely invented to influence the decisions of others with the future in mind; the superstition that putting pennies in shoes brings good luck was probably meant to teach children to save their money, while avoiding outright telling them. Still other superstitions have no purpose at all, creations of children, adults, coincidence, and even literature; Tom Sawyer’s howling dog prophecy more likely than not began in a story brought to the characters’ attention, as howling dogs are used to symbolize tragic events to come in literature. No matter what the purpose for superstitions, they are powerful things, changing the flow of people’s lives, effecting their decisions, and teaching some important lessons, if a person bothers to watch out for them. Indeed, life as we know it would be very different without superstitions; anyone can deny it as much as they want, but we’d miss so much of what we have now, that superstition could very well be one of the most powerful things there are.

The Pink Tree

"But this tree in the yard--this tree that men chopped down...this tree that they built a bonfire around, trying to burn up its stump--this tree lived! It lived! And nothing could destroy it."~Francie Nolan, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

My project for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was a tree hung with ornaments with quotes written on them. I chose to use a tree because going from innocence is like growing a tree; the tree can't grow with out a seed and experience can't be gained from innocence and gaining experience is like the tree growing. Francie is like a tree, growing into experience from the seed of innocence through out the book. She is also like the tree that grows in her backyard in the sense that the world tried to change her, to knock her down, but she just kept on growing. I chose the quotes I did because I thought that they showed this or show who Francie was the best. The tree I used was a pink Christmas tree. It wasn't pink for any reason other than it was the only kind of tree I could find that was the right size and with lights. The lights symbolize the hope that Francie always gave off and spread to everyone, amd her bright, fighting spirit the refused to be brought down, to be ignored. The tree,and everything in it , symbolizes Francie and all that I think she is. If I could do this again, I'd try to see if I could find a plastic Tree of Heaven, or maybe a living pine tree sapling, because I think that would have worked better, the Tree of Heaven being the one from the book, and the sapling representing Francie's growing into experience as the sapling grew.

Cowardice

A response to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

You’re investigating a murder; a man walking home from work was shot down in the night by a thief after the money in his pocket. You find that the killer had left behind the murder weapon while leaving the scene; a gun, owned by the manager of a nearby store. The gun’s recent history, coupled with a witness claim, leads the police to arresting the store owner, sending him to jail. Only after the alleged murderer had been sentenced do you realize that the ‘witness’ had been the real killer, fleeing from the country, framing the innocent and letting them suffer the punishment he was to cowardly to take; a perfect description of Injun Joe in Mark twains book, Tom Sawyer. Injun Joe might have been able to lie to the entire town while keeping a straight face, but Joe was the definition of coward as he persecuted the innocent Muff Potter to keep himself from harm. Cowardice is not how often a person runs away, it’s why they run away from events and obstacles people face.
When people run away, others call it cowardly, telling them running away makes a person chicken-hearted, but those are biased statements; running away doesn’t make a person cowardly, it’s the reasons for running away that make the difference. When a person picks a fight with a force greater than they are, they put themselves in a position where running away would be cowardly, as the person went out of their way to start something they turned out to be too craven to finish. If it’s the other way around, however, the greater force would become the coward, their decisions leading to the conclusion that they face only those smaller than themselves, being too scared to face forces that would actually have a chance against them; this would be a time when a person could run away honorably. Injun Joe displayed cowardice when he persecuted Muff Potter; Joe was the greater power, when he tricked Muff Potter into think he himself had been the killer, then again when he broke his promise to Potter and told the entire town his lie, being the only known person fully conscious at the time of the murder. Later, Injun Joe became the coward once more, as the man against the greater power, the town, when he used the window in the courtroom to escape the conflict he’d started by murdering Doctor Robinson.
Running away isn't always cowardly, but to eliminate an opponent's chance to walk away is always chicken-hearted as well as unfair. Beginning an encounter by sneaking up on a person and aggressing from behind is unfair and implies the person is afraid to let their adversary identify them. The person being ambushed doesn't know what's going on or that an encounter has even been started, making the confrontation unfair in favor of the aggressor, and abolishing chances for the person to walk away. When Injun Joe and his accomplice tried to assassinate the Widow Douglas, it was just like that; Joe’s plan was to sneak into the house in the middle of the night when Widow Douglas was asleep then attack her without warning, bringing as much torture to the widow as possible. Widow Douglas wouldn’t have a chance to run away or get help in an unfair fight against two grown men with intentions to kill, thus no one would know that Injun Joe had not yet fled the country, giving him an easy escape from the base act.
When cowardly decisions are made, such as running from the results of poor judgment, people can make up for them, but not get rid of them. Burglary is a terrible and cowardly act; people break into a house in the middle of the night, when the owners of the house are asleep or gone away, so that no one can see them steal another person’s property then run away and hide. If, however, by some miracle, a burglar would return stolen items, face to face with the one they stole from, the cowardice of the act would have been made up for, but the act itself would still be over the burglar’s head; they would still be eligible for a jail sentence. Muff Potter ran away like a coward, the reality of the act he’d fictitiously committed too much to bear, let alone the consequences for it, but with his return to the scene of the crime, the cowardice of Potter’s running away was forgiven, but neither of the acts themselves. However much it took Injun Joe to keep a straight face while he wove his lies, he remained a coward, having lied rather than given the truth, on top of his previous acts.
Cowardice isn't how much a person runs away, it's the decisions a person makes in life how they respond to the results. To be cowardly is to lack the heart to finish what is started, hiding from consequences of past decisions, cheating and lying a way to desires. People that oppress those smaller or feebler, using underhanded and sneaky tactics to persecute all others are cowardly as well. People should be fair and honest, seeing decisions through to the end, facing up to whatever happens along the way; with out these things, we’d live in a world where all people are cowardly, backhanded killers like Injun Joe, or worse.