Question

Excerpt from Tom Sawyer

Mark Twain

"TOM!"
No answer.
"TOM!"
No answer.
"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!"
No answer.

(2)The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service -- she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well.

(3)She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear: "Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll --"

(4)She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat. "I never did see the beat of that boy!"

(5)She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the tomato vines and "jimpson" weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance and shouted: "Y-o-u-u Tom!"

(6)There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to seize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight.
"There! I might 'a thought of that closet. What you been doing in there?"
"Nothing."
“Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What IS that truck?”
“I don’t know, aunt.”
“Well, I know. It’s jam—that’s what it is. Forty times I’ve said if you didn’t let that jam alone I’d skin you. Hand me that switch.”
The switch hovered in the air—the peril was desperate--
"My! Look behind you, aunt!"

(7)The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board-fence, and disappeared over it. His aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle laugh.

(8)"Hang the boy, can't I never learn anything? Ain't he played me tricks enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time? But old fools is the biggest fools there is. Can't learn an old dog new tricks, as the saying is. (9)But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days, and how is a body to know what's coming? He 'pears to know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he can make out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it's all dowagain and I can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing my duty by that boy, and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows. (10)Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good Book says. I'm a laying up sin and suffering for us both, I know. He's full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's my own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't got the heart to lash him, somehow. (11)Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks. 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. He'll play hookey this evening, and I'll just be obleeged to make him work, tomorrow, to punish him. (12)It's mighty hard to make him work Saturdays, when all the boys is having holiday, but he hates work more than he hates anything else, and I've GOT to do some of my duty by him, or I'll be the ruination of the child."
Which best expresses the irony present in this passage?

A) It is ironic that Tom's aunt is so strict with him about his diet.
B) It is ironic that Tom's aunt is raising him after his mother died.
C) It is ironic that Tom likes to sneak jam when his Aunt isn't looking.
D) It is ironic that Aunt Polly is so strict outwardly with Tom and so tender-hearted toward him inwardly.

Answer 1

The statement that best expresses the irony present in the mentioned passage is:

“It is ironic that Aunt Polly is so strict outwardly with Tom and so tender-hearted toward him inwardly”.

Step-by-step explanation:

The passage describes how Aunt Polly tries to find him in the house from every nook and corner of the house, and once she finds Tom she tries to curb him, but Tom, using his mind tac-tics, outsmarts her and gets a chance to run away from her.

This amuses Aunt Polly as she realizes how Tom always uses the same tricks on her but she never learns from them. This softens her heart as she realizes that children shall be children and that too her own dead sister’s son. She ponders how she needs to look out for him.

This shows that even though she may be strict with Tom from the outside, inwardly she cares and looks out for him.