Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Maria Tatar, a professor of German at Harvard, is partial to the Tales of the Brothers Grimm, who she claims purged the collection of references to sexuality but left in "lurid portrayals of child abuse, starvation, and exposure and fastidious descriptions of cruel and unusual punishments, including cannibalism" (Showalter Pp). Says Tatar, "Giants, ogres, stepmothers, cooks, witches, and evil mothers-in-law are driven by a ravenous appetite for human fare" (Showalter Pp). Indeed fairy tales always possess the elements of evil, whether in the form of monsters, step-mothers, or sorcerers. The list of how evil is presented in fairy tales is endless. However, one thing is for certain and that is there is always a duel between good and evil within the fairy tale motif.

Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" possesses many elements of the fairy tale motif. However Stanley Brodwin sees it as an...
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