Jackson's Island Persuasive Essay

“...escape from hard usage and lack of sympathy at home by roaming abroad into the great world never to return…” (81). This was Tom’s plan to escape his old life and live a life of freedom. Tom is a very mischievous boy in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Tom feels mistreated, so he leaves his small town of Petersburg to stay on Jackson’s Island with two of his friends to live a life as pirates. Tom expects this new life to be easygoing and full of freedom, but what he does not think about is all of the adult choices he must make along the way. Jackson’s Island represents an adult life by allowing Tom to experience these responsibilities and obstacles that come with the freedom of living on one’s own which makes him realize that the

When living with a parent or guardian, children are given food and do not have to deal with any of the stress of paying for it or finding it. Since Tom and his friends were alone on the island, this necessity was the boys’ responsibility, not their parents. The boys found many ways to deal with this problem. For instance, before leaving for Jackson’s Island, the boys had to prepare for what was ahead of them, “The Terror of the Seas [Joe] had brought a side of bacon, and had worn himself out with getting it there” (83). The boys have to be responsible enough to realize that they would get hungry on the island and would need food, so they make sure to bring some of their own. This responsibility is a big step for the boys and they are starting to realize what it is like to live on their own. Not only did they

When the storm destroys Tom’s camp, it is a great example of a disaster an adult could face at any time and could affect the way a person lives. Not only was the storm destroying the boys’ camp, but it altered the way they felt about freedom, “The boys seized each other’s hands and fled, with many tumblings and bruises, to the shelter of a great oak that stood upon the riverbank. Now that battle was at its highest” (105). Feeling terrified, they fought to survive against the storm. This showed them that the freedom of growing up has a lot of obstacles which should be taken into account when wanting to live independently. Not only were the boys able to survive a storm, but they also were able to be thankful even though the storm destroyed all their hard work, “The boys went back to camp, a good deal awed, but they found there was still something to be thankful for, because the great sycamore, the shelter of their beds, was a ruin, now, blasted by the lightning, and they were not under it when the catastrophe happened” (105). The storm ruined their camp and everything they had, but the boys stayed thankful for being able to live another day. This storm gave the boys a taste of failure and made adulthood seem less appealing. After everything the boys have been through, it is not the responsibilities or the disaster, but the homesickness