Twain's Use of Nature in Tom Sawyer

How often is nature described absolutely as pastoral or sublime?  Too often we read literature that deems nature one, and then immediately switches to the other in an instant.  No middle ground is reached where the climate is part pastoral, and part sublime.  In Tom Sawyer, Twain does a great job altering the nature to create a very accurate climate, that doesn’t take away from the rest of the story.  There are times when the weather is clearly pastoral or clearly sublime, and does begin to take on extreme qualities, but it never begins to take on qualities that are untrue or false in the real world.  All the nature and weather in Tom Sawyer could exist in a real world situation and wouldn’t be looked on as fake or miraculous.  Furthermore, the humans in the novel are physically affected by nature, but it never takes on a role greater than expected in real life.

An example of pastoral nature is when Tom first wakes up after sleeping on Jackson Island for the first time.  The scene is described as, “It was the cool gray dawn, and there was a delicious sense of repose and peace in the deep pervading calm and silence of the woods.”  This is a perfect example of Twain using pastoral nature to give the book more depth.  It is just a well-written descriptive sentence, which shows the reader what the scene actually looked and felt like.  He is not trying to say that the woods are an active character in the novel, or that they possess human or god-like qualities; he is simply using descriptive language to better describe the scene, and deepen the novel to make it more interesting for the reader.

            Another perfect example of this is when there is a great tempest on the island, and the boys have to run for cover.  The passage is quite lengthy and it uses language such as “furious blast” and “deafening thunder,” but it is summed up by this, “The storm culminated in one matchless effort that seemed likely to tear the island to pieces, burn it up, drown it to the tree tops, blow it away, and deafen every creature in it, all at one and the same moment.”  Obviously, this is sublime nature with exaggerated description.  However, at no point does it give the nature unreasonable qualities.  It says that the storm “seemed” likely to do many terrible and destructive acts, but it never actually did any of them.  It is clearly just a tool used by Twain to make this scene more exciting and interesting for the reader.

            In conclusion, while there are countless examples of pastoral and sublime nature in Tom Sawyer, at no point do any of them become something more than descriptive language used by Twain to keep the reader interested and entertained.  Stated plainly, he never uses examples that would make nature more than just nature.  The characters in Tom Sawyer are affected by the different kinds of nature used by Twain, but it never takes on abnormal qualities unlike that seen in everyday life.