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.(RI, 14)Twain envisioned himself as larger than life or, at least, larger than certainelements of nature loafing comfortably in the shade of the sagebrush.Thenatural world appeared tiny and laughable, while Twain depicted himself assatisfied in his ability to control nature by manipulating his perception of it(a tendency relevant to Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn).By referencing thechildish and irresponsible Brobdingnagians in Jonathan Swift s Gulliver sTravels, Twain implicitly linked this passage again to the Humboldt Riverpassage.In both, nature appeared as a plaything.When Twain conceived ofhimself as a child, he gained power over nature, and he grew accordingly, butwhen he sought adult financial success and dominance, he was driven tohumiliating defeat.These sections of Roughing It anticipated issues central to Tom Sawyerand Huckleberry Finn.In both novels, Twain created a world inhabited byboys who sought adventure, fun, and freedom in the natural world near theirvillage.Although this world was physically quite different than that inRoughing It, Twain made clear in the preface of Tom Sawyer that St.Petersburg was in the West and that Tom and Huck were western boys (TS, 33, 58).Likewise, drawing upon his success with Roughing It, Twainrepeated the popular conception of the frontier West as a place of liberty, andthe boys often escaped to nature to avoid the stultifying civilization of St.Petersburg.In fact, Twain made use of romantic traditions more in TomSawyer than in his previous work, describing Cardiff Hill as a DelectableLand, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting (TS, 46).Following these cues, criticsoften view nature in Tom Sawyer (like in Huckleberry Finn) as largelyredemptive.Henry Nash Smith defines the conventional perspective: 227The Eco-Criticized Huck Finn Natural man beleaguered by society, but able to gain happiness by escapingto the forest and the river: this is undoubtedly an important aspect of themeaning that thousands of readers have found in the novel. Tom Towersagrees, In nature the children intuit a spiritually vital world which seems tooppose that of adult society at every point.The town means restrictive rulesand onerous tasks, but nature is the scene of games and leisure and, above all,freedom. 5In many ways, Tom Sawyer represented a new stage for Twain.He hadalready established himself as an author.The Gilded Age had provided thedefinitive label for the decade, and Old Times on the Mississippi River hadimpressed the distinguished Atlantic audience.He had also for the mostpart successfully overcome the deprecating label humorist ; or at least hewas not so bothered by its low-class implications.He could count thereputable W.D.Howells among his closest friends and advisers.With suchbacking, Twain time-traveled back to his early childhood in Hannibal,Missouri, retroactively leapfrogging over his late twenty-something years ofRoughing It.The imaginative foray freed him from many of the self-imposedrestrictions and worries that he faced when reconstructing his bohemianyears in Nevada and California.Instead, he explored his relatively innocentboyhood years, an age typically romanticized by and for middle-classreaders.6 As in Roughing It, Twain sought to capitalize on current trends, andhe made occasional use of romantic notions of nature as a moral sanctuary.Nevertheless, if Twain borrowed from common literary conventions,his attitude toward nature in Tom Sawyer also shared important similaritieswith the negative depictions of nature in Roughing It.After all, he did notconceive and write Tom Sawyer for children.He wrote Howells, It is not aboy s book, at all.It will only be read by adults.It is only written for adults (MT-HL, 1:91).Although Howells convinced him to market Tom Sawyer as aboy s book, little evidence exists that he substantially revised his treatment ofnature and its relation to Tom s character.7 Instead, nature often failed in therole of benevolent sanctuary that provided refuge from a corrupt world andheightened the noble qualities in the boys.In fact, Twain playfully invertedthe conventional dynamic.A brief passage featuring Tom in school offered awindow into the larger issues of the novel by presenting nature like inRoughing It as an entity that was easily trifled with.Rather thanresurrecting the lazy Brobdingnag, however, Twain focused on Tom (a giantin his own right), who became baffled by his geography assignment and turned lakes into mountains, mountains into rivers, and rivers intocontinents, till chaos was come again (TS, 80).As in Roughing It, nature wascontrolled by people despite its vast proportions; it was vulnerable and toy- 228Joseph L.Coulombelike.Of course, the difference was that the seismic shifts result from theearth-shattering confusion of Tom.Nevertheless, the resultingrearrangement suggested a God-like power, and the ensuing chaos paralleled visions of the Puritan concept of a second coming, in which Jesusreturned to destroy earth, damn the sinful, and save the elect.In this case,Tom was humorously placed in the role of Jesus, albeit a somewhat muddledone.Despite its brevity, Twain s passing joke hinted at the shiftingrelationship between people, culture, and nature.Rather than naturepossessing a transcendent power over people, it seemed to be at the whim ofhuman behavior.This perspective appears more strikingly when Tom, Huck, and JoeHarper played pirate on Jackson s Island in the Mississippi River.Tom wokebefore the others and observed great Nature s meditation (TS, 121).Content to observe, he lay quietly for a while, in what initially appeared as aconventionally romantic scene.8 Twain wrote, The marvel of Natureshaking off sleep and going to work unfolded itself to the musing boys (TS,121).At first glance Tom seemed struck by the power and beauty of nature;it existed entirely outside of him as a source of wonder and purity.Yet twosmall incidents called attention to a different paradigm at work.First, Tomwatched a tiny green worm inch toward him, and he was ecstatic when itcrawled over him because he believed that the worm presaged a new suit ofclothes (TS, 121).Tom s joy over this somewhat civilized form of wealthillustrates the breakdown of supposed divisions between people and nature.Even though he imagined that the clothes would be a new pirate s outfit, theprimary value of being a pirate to Tom was its significance among his fellowyoungsters; their envy and admiration made it worthwhile.As a result, naturedid not draw Tom away from a corrupt world; rather, it promised him successin that world.In a second incident, Tom whispered to a brown-spottedladybug: Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home, your house is on fire, yourchildren s alone (TS, 121).When the bug went off to see about it, Tomwas not surprised because he knew that this insect was credulous aboutconflagrations (TS, 122).Here again, Tom understood nature purely inrelation to his own whims and moods.Nature did not act upon him so muchas he acted upon it.His innocence did not result from nature s goodness;rather, the belief that he could control (or interpret) nature pointed to apreexisting naîveté.In Tom Sawyer, then, nature was less likely to produce or foster a certaintype of person (i.e., spiritual, noble, pure), than to reflect a person s attitude ata particular moment.When Tom woke up to the beautiful morning, thebucolic scene said as much about Tom as about nature.He was excited about 229The Eco-Criticized Huck Finnhis adventure away from home, so he felt good about himself, and naturemirrored his positive disposition
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