The Misconceptions Of Common Sense

The Misconceptions of Common Sense By Mariah Neuhauser We read Tom Sawyer because it’s important to know what life was like before common sense. It’s mandatory to learn from our past mistakes. Their common sense was severely misconstrued, and it’s not much different from nowadays, as racism still exists. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer just goes to show how easily people made generalizations. It’s important to learn from our former prejudices. Tom and Huck used a derogative term for Joe because of his skin color. Joe called himself that term as well because, at that time, they didn’t know what “racist” meant, or even was. Now, we’ve looked back upon our culture’s mistakes. Some of us haven’t changed, while most of us have come a long way to show that we’ve overcome our regrets. Their common sense was misconstrued. The main characters jumped to conclusions too quickly, without looking over and evaluating the facts. Tom and Huck were very superstitious, believing that a dead cat would cure their warts. Although, the dead cat brought on a suspenseful turn of events, such as the witnessing of the murder of Doc, leading to the framing of Muff Potter, and to the heroism of Tom in the court room. The sense of common sense back then had little sense at all. The book illustrates how similar our culture, and Tom’s culture, are today. There is still racism nowadays, and a lot of it; no one just cares to admit it. Everyday, in every town, you’ll always see a few groups of people that stay stationary to their own people, because they either feel that they are superior to others because of their race, or because they feel inferior to the races of others. Joe was a minority in the book, as Twain failed to mention other Native Americans, foreshadowing Joe as the only one of “his kind” in their area. In the 1800’s, racism was more openly expressed, now, it’s more sly, cunning, and subtle, but it still exists. Slavery may be abolished, but racism will always here, but it’ll be more hidden. I cannot say whether I like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, or whether I do not like it. I can say that some portions of the book were flawed, as they only showed one side – the White side – of the story. They failed to look at the other perspective, in this case, Joe’s. How did he feel about the racist remarks, derogative comments, and prejudicial actions that he received? I think that very aspect of the story is biased and racist against both races – Native American and Caucasian – because they show how much bigotry there was against Native Americans, and they also showed how the concept of common sense, in the Caucasians’ case, was severely flawed. There should have been two sides to this story, only then could I really enjoy it.