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The Gilded Age

a book which also elevates the realist above the idealist.

The contrast Twain creates through Huck is the contrast between American pragmatism and European romantic idealism, and Tom Sawyer represents the latter. Tom is an overpowering presence when he is on the scene and imposes his view of the world, a highly romantic view, on his friend. Huck, however, even as he participates in Tom's recreations of the novels of Sir Walter Scott, always has a certain piratical sense that keeps him from believing the reality of the code of honor that Tom is always touting as necessary for heroic action. Much of the trip down the river will bring Huck into interactions with others who profess to live by a code that sets them apart from others and makes them more noble, more virtuous, and more honest. The education that Huck gets shows him that most of these people are hollow, that their codes of honor are false, that they are hypocritical about the values they claim to believe, and that those who represent the civilization the Widow Douglas has been trying to get him to join are not the role models they have been made out to be.

Huck's education and his mode of learning is based on reality--he sees the world as it is presented to him and makes his decisions based on an understanding of human nature and his own innate sense of right and wrong. Tom, on the other hand, tries again and again to shape the world into the romantic notion he has derived from adventure novels. Huck is straightforward when left to his own devices, while Tom is devious for the sake of being devious. Tom is also punished for his transgressions by being shot in the leg, though characteristically he does not view this as punishment but as romantic vindication. Tom keeps certain knowledge to himself, which Huck would not do. He does not tell Huck that his father is dead, and he does not tell Jim that he was freed when Miss Watson died and left him a mention in her wi...

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The Gilded Age. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 10:43, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1708016.html