The Greed of Good and Evil

In the novel Tom Sawyer there is a re-occuring theme throughout the book expressing the feelings of every person during one period or another of their life time. This theme has caught Tom and his friends in some pretty hasty situations while they plow their way through a young child's innocent way of living. This emotion can all fit into one word: greed. Not only does the greed in this book leave Tom fighting to stay alive, it leaves people wishing they were dead.

When Tom and Huck witness the murder of Dr. Robinson, they cannot help but be scared of also loosing their lives to the evil of the book, Injun Joe. This man greedily steals the life of a man, and the body of a dead one, then tries to frame Muff Potter for his wrong doings. This is a very selfish thing to do and in the wonderfully romantic world of Tom Sawyer, something more than evil. The greed of Injun Joe comes back into the book in a innocently modified version of Tom, Huck, and Joe when they run away to Jackson Island; they let their loved ones grieve over their "deaths" while they enjoy the vacation of a life time, for reckless and carefree boys. While this act was selfish, it does not measure up, nor come close to, the amount of hatred and passion Injun Joe displays. This innocent greed grows as the boys continue to travel deeper into the evils of the book.

"There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure." - Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. This quote illustrates the boy's innocence in their selfishness as they dig for buried treasure in chapter twenty-six. This part of the novel did not fit into the plot of a romantic novel very well; Injun Joe and his accomplice are far more menacing than the romantic plotline would ensue them to be for there is much evil at play, but the book is a romantic comedy.Their greedy inquire soon is regreted once they arrive at the haunted house to do their biddings, for Injun Joe and his new accomplice show up at the house, looking for a hide-out for them to plan their "revenge". Tom and Huck are trapped upstairs and eavesdropping on the two men, when Injun Joe eyes the boy's pick axe by wall with fresh dirt on it's head; leading to his conclusion of someone being upstairs. The innocent boys are terrified as he begins to descend the stairs, when the stairs fall though fom decay and rot with Injun Joe in the middle of them.

This shows the romantic plot, and also shows the comic romance plot of how once again Tom is saved in the nick of time. Injun Joe is mightily greedy, and when he opens the chest of gold he has found, he takes all of it. The boys remorse in how unlucky they were to have just happened across the wrong place at the wrong time; their harmless and childish greed yearns for the money to be in their hands, not the evil ones of Injun Joe.

This novel demonstrates that when good and evil collide, there is a great deal of greed amoung the air. When the novel started to indulge into it's deeper realms of romantism, the more exciting Tom and his friend's adventures began to be; increasing the risk of what happens when people become greedy with their lives, and start to take from others. Greed is a very dangerous thing to have, and once you are infected, there is no telling how far you will go to get what you want.