As I was reading the excerpt from Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, I realized that there is a large distinction between how boys and girls think about religion and apply it to their lives. This difference can be seen within the excerpt, along with when compared to other stories from the nineteenth century.
The gender division in religion was a major theme in Tom Sawyer. I think that Mark Twain created characters based off of the idea that girls/women are taught to be more religion-based than boys/men. For example, on page 3 of Tom Sawyer, Aunt Polly (in her own aside) brings up her religious beliefs when talking about Tom and his mischievous ways. In describing her nephew she says, “Well-a-well, man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, as the Scripture says, and I reckon it’s so.” This reference to the Bible, along with other revelations of her religion, sets her up to seem as if she has been taught it all of her life. Tom, along with all of the other boys mentioned in the excerpt, do not circle their lives around their religion. The only time we ever see Tom even speak of Scripture or the Bible is when he is conniving his way into being awarded a new Bible. According to pages 34 and 35, being awarded a Bible was more for show than for the purpose of widening his knowledge. The story states that Tom’s “entire being had for many a day longed for the glory and the éclat that came with [the prize of a Bible].” This shows that religion was not as important to boys as it was girls.
This religious difference when it comes to gender has also been seen through other stories we have read. Just like Tom in Tom Sawyer, Dick in Ragged Dick does not mention his life ever being circled around God or any sort of religion. With these young boys, there does not seem to be as big of a religious push from adults to force them into learning more about having faith in God. When thinking about the girls we have read about, on the other hand, we know that religion was repetitively stamped into their minds and there was always a religious mold for them to fill. This difference from story to story again shows that boys and girls are split when it comes to what they base their lives around.
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I definitely agree with what you said about the differences in girls and boys when talking about religion. There are a ton of examples that we have seen in american literature so far that really makes this point a fact. This is just one of the many examples of just how different boys are from girls! Great job!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the religious split between girls and boys in the 19th century. I also think that that can be applied to different cultures in today's society too. In my own family, religion seems to be big on the women's part of my family and I have always been encouraged to seek God and church. My brother however has a choice as to whether or not he even wants to go to church. This response to the prompt makes a valid point. Good job!
ReplyDeleteYou make an excellent point! While not always true a hundred percent of the time, women (and girls) do seem to be more religious than men. Young Ellen was struggling to accept God, yet Ragged Dick didn't even know what a bible was. I think that this is amplified in Tm Sawyer when Twain outright mocks organized religion.
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