Critique of Tom Sawyer Abroad

Instead of conveying any significant points of view, the aim of this novel, I think, is to renew the boyhood experiences, arouse our interest in perilous adventures, and probably help Mark Twain earn some money to ride out his financial crisis. The novel composed of 13 chapters is more like a collection of individual short stories. Not only does it lack coherence but each story itself is preposterous. Taking a big balloon to travel across the Atlantic Ocean and getting to Africa, the three main characters—Tom, Huck, and Jim—undergo many dangerous and exotic adventures, but they are more like the witnesses rather than the real participants in their each adventure. For instance, they just witness the way in which an Arabian snatches at a child and do not hatch a complicate plot to rescue the child, as Tom does in his rescue of Jim in The Adventure of Huck Finn.

In contrast to the adventures Huck and Tom undergo in other two stories (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer), the two boys are not involved in any incident and this is why I think it is a stale story. Losing the original characteristics of the characters is another failure of this novel. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain portrays his two boy characters vividly. Tom who is described as a smart and naughty boy is fond of being in the limelight and boasting about his heroic acts, while Huck is a humbler and more considerate kid. While reading these two stories, readers are sympathetic to these two characters because they are so real that they are like the kids living next to us. However, we cannot find these similar feeling in Tom Sawyer Abroad where Tom is an "arrogant" boy, though he is a boy of strong pride in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Huck and Jim are just two stupid people following the stupid commands of Tom all the time. The story does not retain the original characteristics of Huck, Tom, and Jim. In a sense, I do not think this story can be seen as a sequel of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, except the same characters. In addition, the story is too "modern" and unrealistic for the 19th century readers. Even if the setting is in the 21st century, it is still too unacceptable. Is it possible for three people to go traveling by a "balloon" at that time? It seems Mark Twain ignores it deliberately. Though Huck and Jim go on their adventure on a raft, their adventures are more realistic, credible, and of course interesting.

In short, it is hard to appeal to children even if it is made into a cartoon, for the story lacks fun and significances and insight. I doubt as to Twain's aim of writing this novel is to create one more story about Huck, Tom, and Jim.

星雲法師之靜思語

上等的人是有慈悲心和有智慧的人
中等的人是有慈悲心但沒有智慧的人
下等的人是有智慧但沒有慈悲心的人
劣等的人是沒有慈悲心也沒有智慧的人

The Academic Hypocritics

In order to earn NT$ 7000 per month, I was so stupid that I once again accepted the job offered by Huang and her husband. My time and life have been cut asunder by their endless jobs. Over the past two months, I have been working hard to cope with many a hypocritical scholar, arrange two meaningless conferences, take charge of the damnable account, and deal with a haughty graduate student from Chaio-tung University. Through this job, not only do I see through the hypocrisy of those so-called scholars as well as some arrogant graduate students but I detect clearly the academic hierarchy. I notice how the rookie scholars endeavor to climb up to the power center which is tightly dominated by some groups of professors. They cling to the powerful professors, shamelessly humoring them and taking advantages of other people. I am not quite sure if they do believe in what they study. They like to produce a lot of papers pertaining to the so-called "the exploitation of the lower classes" and "caring about the minority," both of which are the mainstay of the academic study, but ironically they usually exploit the minority and get the greatest benefits. What a shame! I don't know why they still have effrontery to present those hypocritical papers. Their words are always inconsistant with their minds. For example, a young scholar named Su is devoted to the study of minority, but when a poor graudate student asked her for help, she not only refused to give him any assistance but also insulted him, saying that "It seems your family will go bankrupt if you neither graduate this year nor go to work right now." Their main concern, I think, is not so much the social care as their own benefits. I am always wondering if they have no conscience at all about cheating.