Question

Which of these inferences about Tom is best supported by the entire excerpt?

Answer choices for the above question

A. He cares most about making sure the fence job is done well.

B. He has a pre-planned strategy to fool the other boys.

C. He feels bad about tricking so many of his friends.

D. He didn’t really have any fun activities planned out for the day.


He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for having to work—the very thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and examined it—bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an exchange of WORK, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his pocket, and gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great, magnificent inspiration.

He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in sight presently—the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been dreading. Ben's gait was the hop-skip-and-jump—proof enough that his heart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple, and giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a deep-toned ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. As he drew near, he slackened speed, took the middle of the street, leaned far over to starboard and rounded to ponderously and with laborious pomp and circumstance—for he was personating the Big Missouri, and considered himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was boat and captain and engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself standing on his own hurricane-deck giving the orders and executing them:

"Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!" The headway ran almost out, and he drew up slowly toward the sidewalk.

"Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!" His arms straightened and stiffened down his sides.

"Set her back on the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow! ch-chow-wow! Chow!" His right hand, mean-time, describing stately circles—for it was representing a forty-foot wheel….

Tom went on whitewashing—paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben stared a moment and then said: "Hi-YI! YOU'RE up a stump, ain't you!"

No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said:

"Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?"

Tom wheeled suddenly and said:

"Why, it's you, Ben! I warn't noticing."

"Say—I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? But of course you'd druther WORK—wouldn't you? Course you would!"

Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said:

"What do you call work?"

"Why, ain't THAT work?"

Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly:

"Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain't. All I know, is, it suits Tom Sawyer."

"Oh come, now, you don't mean to let on that you LIKE it?"

The brush continued to move.

"Like it? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?"

That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth—stepped back to note the effect—added a touch here and there—criticised the effect again—Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said:

"Say, Tom, let ME whitewash a little."

Tom considered, was about to consent; but he altered his mind:

"No—no—I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly's awful particular about this fence—right here on the street, you know—but if it was the back fence I wouldn't mind and SHE wouldn't. Yes, she's awful particular about this fence; it's got to be done very careful; I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it the way it's got to be done."

Answer 1

B. He has a pre-planned strategy to fool the other boys.

What is the main conflict of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"?

In the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom's energetic consciousness collides with adult civilization. Tom is presented against the backdrop of individuals and institutions that try to contain him, including Aunt Polly, school, and more studious boys like Sid.

Tom is torn between extremes. He most admires and feels a yearning for the freedom of the social outcast Huck Finn, yet he keeps this friendship largely under wraps because he knows it's not socially acceptable. He chafes against the constraints imposed by Aunt Polly and school, but, like the trickster he is, works within the confines. His conflict throughout the novel is navigating his relationship with a restrictive adult society that wants to rub away his rough edges. He struggles to be who he is against a system that demands he conform.

Tom shows his boisterous personality, trickster spirit, and ability to adapt when he is able to turn his punishment -- whitewashing a fence outside his house -- into an enviable game, luring other boys into paying him with gifts for the privilege of doing an unwanted chore.

He does his best to avoid school, a place where he is forced to sit still when he would prefer active engagement with life. His exuberance pulls him into adventure, such as when the desire to find a buried treasure causes he and Huck to enter a graveyard at night, where they stumble across Injun Joe committing a murder.

Tom is part of an American tradition that includes such red-blood trickster figures as Washington Irving's Brom Bones in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." These robust males reject book learning and a feminized civilizations which conflicts with their desire for physical activity, freedom, and adventure.