"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer": Twain's Extensive Use of Sarcasm Elias Curran-Moore 9th Grade

Sarcasm by definition entirely changes the way a comment or sometimes whole event is interpreted, often flipping a subject on its head, altering the original obvious meaning and revealing it to be the near opposite. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain uses sarcasm throughout the text to add humor, change reader's perspective of events, portray a theme or moral, and also just to express his thoughts on a certain subject. The place of satiric sarcasm in the novel may be more important and more complex than might appear at first glance.

In these scenes, one overarching reason that Twain uses sarcasm throughout the story is to add humor. Sarcasm makes the story as a whole much funnier, humor being a quality that The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is famous for. Without such remarkably funny moments, the novel would likely not have become so popular with such a diverse group of readers, especially of a younger age. Such laughable parts in the novel make the story much more attractive, but they have another purpose other than for pure enjoyment. Heavy sarcasm makes the book not just much more interesting, but also adds a layer of depth. Sarcasm turns the novel into a story you can get more easily caught up in and ponder certain...