Tom Sawyer

                                          The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

                                       Created by Mark Twain

                                              (Samuel Clemens)

                                                                       

                                        Source: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/565150/mark-twain-books-facts

  

                            Thomas Sawyer: the main- title character

                               Family:  Aunt Polly (aunt)

                                               Sally Phelps (aunt)

                                               Mary (cousin) 

                                               Sid (half-brother)

                                Source:https://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=tom-sawyer-holt-elements-literature

Tom Sawyer is one of the best known novels written in the United States. It traces the fortunes of  the roguish* boy  Tom, his adventures, hopes, fantasies, romances and his harsh collision with a very adult world of greed and murder.  The book is a thriller and a comedy, an exploration of youth and a rich picture of rural life in the nineteenth century Mississippi. The novel is ideal material for a stage adaptation as it is full of action and every scene is centred around  one character: Tom Sawyer, perhaps the most engaging  youth in American literature.

*roguish: playfully mischievous

                                         Inspiration

The fictional character's name may have been derived from a jolly and extravagant chief named Tom Sawyer with whom Twain was acquainted in San Francisco, California, while Twain was employed as a reporter at the San Francisco Call. Twain used to listen to Sawyer tell stories of his youth, "Sam, he would listen to these pranks of mine with great interest and he'd occasionally take 'em down in his
notebook. One day he says to me: ‘I am going to put you between the covers of a book some of these days, Tom.’ ‘Go ahead, Sam,’ I said, ‘but don’t disgrace my name.’" 

Twain himself said the character sprang from three people, later identified as: John B. Briggs (who died in 1907), William Bowen (who died in 1893). Twain later changed his story saying Sawyer was fully formed solely from his imagination, but as Robert Graysmith says, "The great appropriator liked to pretend his characters sprang fully grown from his fertile mind" 

                                                                      Tom

Tom Sawyer is an orphan, a boy of about 12 years of age, who lives in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, in about the year 1845.He  is a mischievous and carefree boy with an active imagination who spends most of the novel getting himself, and often his friends, into and out of trouble. Despite his mischief, Tom has a good heart and a strong moral conscience. As the novel progresses, he begins to take more seriously the responsibilities of his role as a leader among his schoolfellows.

 His best friends include Joe Harper and Huckleberry Finn.

One of the most famous scenes in the book is the “fence scene”, where Tom Sawyer is asked by his Aunt Polly to whitewash their fence as a punishment for a prior mischief. Tom Sawyer, being young, wishes he could play instead. Ben Rogers, one of his friends sees him doing this job and does his best to make fun of him for his penance.Tom turns the situation around and a dozen boys paint the fence for him while he plays to his heart’s desire and they even pay him for the privilege.

Watch the scene of the fence and find out some more character traits that Tom possesses.

In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom's love for classmate Becky Thatcher is apparent as he tries to make an impression on her  with his strength, boldness, and handsome looks. 

                                                                        Themes

The novel (bildungsroman) deals with several themes such as youth, hope and dreams, manipulation, however, the  most important themes are definitely:

                                           Source: https://slideplayer.com/slide/8306092/

Tom's story celebrates the freedom, mischief, and excitement of youth, and suggests that children shouldn’t hurry to grow up and become adults

                                 

       

              

     

APPLE (Malum)

                                      APPLES                 

We all know apples: they are edible fruit that grow on apple trees. They have been grown for thousands of years in Asia and Europe and were brought to North America by European colonists. 

Source: https://www.estrepublicain.fr/pour-sortir/loisirs/Exposition/Autres-expositions/Franche-comte/Doubs/Grand-combe-chateleu/2019/09/22/Les-pommes



The first apples were found growing wild in the mountains of Central Asia.They were introduced to North America by colonists in the 17th century and the apple tree may have been the earliest tree that humans cultivated.

 SOME LEGENDS,TRADITIONS & OTHER TRIVIA

- Apples appear in many religious traditions often as forbidden fruit, however, the word "apple" was used as a generic term for all fruit, other than berries, including nuts, as late as the 17th century.Though the forbidden fruit of Eden in the book of Genesis* is not identified, popular Christian tradition has held that it was an apple that Eve coaxed Adam to share with her.
*Genesis: the first book of the Bible which desribes how God made the world

     Source: The Guardian  (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/14/severance-intercourse-by-robert-olen-butler-review)


- When tomatoes were introduced to Europe, they were called "love apples". Cucumbers used to be called  "earth-apples', just as in French, Dutch, Hebrew, Persian and Swiss German as well as several other German dialects, the words for potatoes mean "earth-apples". In some languages, oranges are called "golden apples" or "Chinese apples".
                         
- In North America an American Indian is called an "apple" denoting someone who is "red on the outside and white on the inside" primarily by other American Indians to indicate someone who has lost touch with their cultural identity.

-"An apple a day keeps the doctor away" is a popular saying. The apple symbolizes health and advantages of eating fresh fruit.

- Comparing "apples and oranges" means to examine the similarities of things that are completely different; in Slovene the corresponding expression is "Comparing apples with pears".

- Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in California that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software and online services. It is considered one of the Big Four tech companies along with Amazon, Google and Facebook.

Source:https://bohatala.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/financial-report-of-apple-inc-2014-1-638.jpg

Apple Inc. decided to use not a complete apple for their logo but an apple with a bite (byte) taken out of it.

Mr, Janoff, the creator of the logo (1977) explained where he got the inspirtion : "The reason for the bite is that it's there for scale, so that a small Apple logo still looks like an apple, and not a cherry! As of why it's an apple? It results in Steve Jobs working in an orchard when he was a boy so I decided to name it after his favorite brand of apple, McIntosh."

- New York has several nicknames such as "The Great American Melting Pot", "The City That Never Sleeps" and also "The Big Apple".Some say the name comes from well-to-do families who sold apples on city streets to make ends meet during the Great Depression*. Others believe that the term comes from a notorious 19th century brothel named Eve whose girls were referred to as "Big Apples". The nickname, however, comes from a catchphrase used in the 1920s by The Morning Telegraph sports writer John J. Fitz Geraldin in his horse racing column "Around the Big Apple".Beginning on February 18, 1924, he began every column with a header, "The Big Apple. The dream of every lad that ever threw a leg over a thoroughbred and the goal of all horsemen.There's only one Big Apple. That's New York." At that time, the jockeys and trainers of smaller horses were said to want make a "Big Apple", which was the term for the big money prizes at larger races in and around New York.


*The Great Depression was the greatest and the longest economic recession in modern world history. It began with the U.S. stock market crash in 1929and did not end until 1946 after World War II.

Source:https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/north-america/united-states/new-york/new-york/

                                                                Source:https://leonabeth.co.uk/portfolio/new-york-big-apple-illustration/

                      

                                                            APPLE FOR THE TEACHER

The apple has several symbolic meanings: it can symbolise fertility, love, knowledge, wisdom and much more.

The apple became a symbol of teachers and education in the 18th century. The tradition of giving an apple to a teacher started in the 1700s before governments around the world paid for the education for its people. Poor families in Denmark and Sweden gave teachers baskets of apples and potatoes as payment for teaching their children.

Source:https://www.freepik.com/premium-photo/apple-knowledge-symbol-pencil-books-desk_2017444.htm

Today, apples are very popular fruit worldwide, with over 7,500 known varieties. They can be baked, pressed, dried, fermented, poached, grilled, dipped in caramel, added to smoothie, and of course eaten as they are: red, green, yellow, juicy, crunchy, soft, shiny, sweet, sour, delicious, tasty, yummy, healthy,etc.

To learn more about apples you can watch a video:

Source:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvsQ6kRRf8k

Interesting facts about Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Spain and Slovenia

           

Test your knowledge and take the quiz HERE.

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT:

DENMARK: watch the video:

You can find the first interesting fact here:

To find out more about the meaning of LEGO, watch the video:

            

GERMANY: watch the video:

To find out more about Oktoberfest and the longest German words watch the videos:

ICELAND: watch the video:

Here is an interesting fact about Iceland:

SPAIN: watch the video:

Do you know who is believed to have written the first novel? Here is the answer:

Here is another interesting fact about Spain:

SLOVENIA: watch the video:

Here is the first interesting fact about a Slovene hostel that used to be a prison:

The next video is about Drago Karnicar and his first ever ski descent from Mt Everest:

Here is Kekec - the most popular character from children's literature and his song called "Kekčeva pesem" or The Kekec Song:

KEKČEVA PESEM

Jaz pa pojdem in zasejem
dobro voljo pri ljudeh.
V eni roki nosim sonce,
v drugi zlati smeh.
                                       

 THE KEKEC SONG

I will set off and I will sow

My good will in people’s hearts.

In my right hand the sun is carried,

in the left, a golden laugh.

We are all winners here.
- Alfonso Ribeiro

                                       PYGMALION

                                                   Dictionary entry:

Pygmalion: noun, classical mythology; a sculptor and king of Cyprus who carved an ivory statue of a maiden and fell in love with it. It was brought to life, in response to his prayer, by Aphrodite.

                                                     AUTHOR: GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

BOOK: PYGMALION

GANRE: PLAY, COMEDY, ROMANCE

NUMBER OF ACTS: 5 

WRITTEN: 1912

TIME & PLACE: London, England, 1900s

The story was first filmed in 1938 and was adapted as the stage musical My Fair Lady in 1956 (filmed in 1964).

                                                                  Characters

Eliza Doolittle is first introduced as an unpolished, foul-mouthed flower girl but is transformed into a beautiful woman. Eliza Doolittle is a young Cockney flower girl whose goal in life is to leave her life on the streets and run her own shop. Eliza develops into an articulate and worthy representative of her generation, and a feisty opponent to the bullying Higgins.

Professor Higgins is a linguist who believes he can transform Eliza Doolittle into a duchess in six months. He is an intelligent man but is also disrespectful to others despite their social class and extremely arrogant.

Colonel Pickering is a linguist who challenges Professor Higgins to transform Eliza Doolittle into a duchess. Colonel Pickering funds Professor Higgins' work with Eliza and is considerate and kind to her.

Alfred Doolittle is Eliza's materialistic father who tries to obtain money when he learns Professor Higgins is working with Eliza.

Mrs. Higgins is Professor Higgins's mother, who disagrees with Higgins' and Pickering's plan to try to change Eliza into a duchess.

Freddy Eynsford Hill - Freddy first meets Eliza during a meeting with his mother and sister at Mrs. Higgins' house. He falls in love with Eliza and writes letters to woo her.

Brief overview

Pygmalion is in many ways a Cinderella story with its transformation of a poor but lovely young girl into a princess.

Henry Higgins, a phonetician, accepts a bet that simply by changing the speech of a Cockney flower seller he will be able, in six months, to pass her off as a duchess. Eliza undergoes grueling training. When she successfully “passes” in high society—having in the process become a lovely young woman of sensitivity and taste—Higgins dismisses her abruptly as a successfully completed experiment. Eliza, who now belongs neither to the upper class, whose mannerisms and speech she has learned, nor to the lower class, from which she came, rejects his dehumanizing attitude.

Major Themes

Language as a Class Barrier

In his preface to the play, entitled, "A Professor of Phonetics," Shaw writes:

“The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. They spell it so abominably that no man can teach himself what it sounds like.”

In Pygmalion, language is closely tied with class. From a person’s accent, one can determine where the person comes from and usually what the person’s background is.The power of language to break through social barriers is fully realized in Eliza's triumphant performance at the ambassador's party. She is perceived to be a duchess. Yet victory has its price. She can speak nothing but his language now, which cuts her off from her former life, feeling abandoned by Higgins and faced with an uncertain future.

COCKNEY: [ U ] the type of speech used by working-class people from the East End of London

                    [ C ] a person from the East End of London, who speaks cockney

Cockney rhyming slang is a humorous slang first used by Cockneys. It was invented in London in the 1840s by market traders, costermongers (sellers of fruit and vegetables from handcarts) and street hawkers. It was probably first used as a language designed to disguise what was being said from passers-by.

Rhyming slang often includes humour. Many phrases make sarcastic or ironic references to their subjects, like for example: trouble and strife =wife, fat boy slim= gym, jam-jar = car, plates of meat = feet, giraffe = laugh, Brad Pitt = fit, etc.

“Are you ‘avin a Giraffe mate?”.

"Mate, that girl is proper Brad Pitt."

The pronunciation in cockney is often different, like for instance:

● initial h is dropped: »ouse« = house, «Enry«= Henry

● /ð/ becomes [v]: »muvver »= mother

● /θ/ becomes [f] :« fink »= think

● vowel sounds become longer: »daavnt« = don't, etc

 Cockney slang also uses double negation: »There ain't nuffink like it.« = There is nothing like it

Transformation

Shaw explores the theme of transformation by showing how a poor flower girl becomes a lovely, self-reliant lady, both superficially and at heart. Like Pygmalion's ivory sculpture, she is brought to passionate life. No longer a "squashed cabbage" or even a duchess, she becomes an independent woman. 

Appearance and identity

Appearances can be deceiving and mask the true essence of a person. Eliza evolves in speech and dress, etiquette, and expectations. She discovers that she no longer fits into her former situation. That self is lost to her. Her identity—who she is and where she fits in the world—must adjust.

  

    

George Bernard Shaw 

was an Irish plawright, critic and political activist.  He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman(1902) and Pygmalion (1912).