Chapter 2 from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Imagine being a boy living in the 18th century. You given a job to whitewash a fence, so in order to have fun you perform the job slowing, waiting for the next dimwit to come up so you can manipulate him, In chapter two from the book The Adventure of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain shows the live of a boy who just loves to manipulate other people to do his job.

Even though it is some somewhat evil, Tom Sawyer is you average kid trying to get a job done in his own way. He tries to manipulate by trying to make them think that whitewashing is fun. For example on page 14 Tom says, “Like it? Well, I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” Then and there Tom sucker punches his victim to do his job of whitewashing his fence. To do such a thing you really need to have a rotten brain which is exactly what Tom Sawyer has. Adding to that right at the beginning of the story when he starts to whitewash his fence he says his famous line, “[The fence was about] thirty yards broad, [and] nine feet high!” If any one were to paint a fence like that they would probably start at midnight and end at midnight, and Tom supposedly finish with his servant in about 8 hours flat. Therefore good ol’ Tom Sawyer is making a mountain out of a molehill.

While Tom is trying to convince many people that working is fun, one of the victims is Slave Jim. Slave Jim is a very innocent character in the book that is not like Tom at all. He likes to do his work to the full of his abilities, because he knows if he doesn’t do it adequately he will get a big spanking by Aunt Polly. The only reason he almost does some work is that he liked the bribe. Which is, “[A] white alley, … and it’s a bully tow.” This is supposed to be a high-quality marble. In the end Jim takes the marble from his hand and ran away teaching Tom a life lesson.

On the other hand Ben Rodger is your normal dimwit. He was easily caught under the grasp of Tom’s awful way of words. Tom had to use basic manipulation techniques to grab hold of the imbecile. If Ben would bulk up and realize what he was doing, he would have easily done the same thing to Tom as Jim did. On the contrary Ben is just plain old stupid. Come on, giving up a juicy apple to whitewash your average picket fence I mean come on man!

Most likely Tom won’t stop manipulating people to do his work, but Chapter two from the story The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, teaches you a very good lesson about manipulation. In conclusion, the moral for this story is that when given a job think like Jim not like Tom.