Try, if you can, to strip away the haze of nostalgia and sentiment through which we generally perceive Mark Twain\u2019s world, and imagine how a boy like Tom Sawyer would be regarded today. As far as I can tell, that fight is not just \u201cinappropriate behavior,\u201d to use current playground terminology, but is also one of the many symptoms of \u201coppositional defiant disorder\u201d (ODD), a condition that Tom manifests throughout the book.<\/p>\n
And Tom is not merely ODD: He clearly has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as well, judging by his inability to concentrate in school. \u201cThe harder Tom tried to fasten his mind on his book, the more his mind wandered,\u201d Twain writes at one point. Unable to focus (\u201cTom\u2019s heart ached to be free\u201d) he starts playing with a tick. This behavior is part of a regular pattern: A few days earlier in church (where he had to sit \u201cas far away from the open window and the seductive outside summer scenes as possible\u201d), Tom had been unable to pay attention to the sermon and played with a pinch bug instead.<\/p>\n
\nIn fact, Tom manifests many disturbing behaviors. He blames his half-brother for his poor decisions, demonstrating an inability to take responsibility for his actions. He provokes his peers, often using aggression. He deliberately ignores rules and demonstrates defiance toward adults. He is frequently dishonest, at one point even pretending to be dead. Worst of all, he skips school \u2014 behavior that might, in time, lead him to be diagnosed with conduct disorder (CD), from which his friend Huck Finn clearly suffers.\n
I am not being entirely sarcastic here: I have reread both \u201cTom Sawyer\u201d and \u201cThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn\u201d several times in recent years, precisely because Twain draws such fascinating portraits of children whose behavior is familiar, even if we now describe it differently. As a mother of boys, I find this weirdly reassuring: Although ADHD and ODD are often dismissed as recently \u201cinvented\u201d disorders, they describe personality types and traits that have always existed. A certain kind of boy has always had trouble paying attention in school. A certain kind of boy has always picked fights with friends, gone smoking in the woods and floated down the river on rafts.<\/p>\n
In previous eras, such behavior was just as problematic for adults as it is today. Poor old Aunt Polly \u2014 how many times does she \u201cfall to crying and wringing her hands\u201d? To cope with Tom, she seeks names for his disorder \u2014 he is \u201cfull of the Old Scratch,\u201d meaning the devil \u2014 and searches for ways to control him (\u201cSpare the rod and spile the child,\u201d she tells herself).<\/p>\n
But if the behavior or actions of the children and the parents are familiar, the society surrounding them is not. Tom Sawyer turns out fine in the end. In 19th-century Missouri, there were still many opportunities for impulsive kids who were bored and fidgety in school: The very qualities that made him so tiresome \u2014 curiosity, hyperactivity, recklessness \u2014 are precisely the ones that get him the girl, win him the treasure and make him a hero. Even Huck Finn is all right at the end of his story. Although he never learns to tolerate \u201csivilization,\u201d he knows he can head out to \u201cIndian territory,\u201d to the empty West, where even the loose rules of Missouri life won\u2019t have to be followed.<\/p>\n
Nothing like that is available to children who don\u2019t fit in today. Instead of striking out into the wilderness like Huck Finn, they get sent to psychologists and prescribed medication \u2014 if they are lucky enough to have parents who can afford that sort of thing. Every effort will rightly be made to help them pay attention, listen to the teacher, stop picking fights in the playground. Nowadays, there aren\u2019t any other options.<\/p>\n
via Anne Applebaum \u2013 Tom Sawyer and today\u2019s children: Same behavior, different treatment<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/blockquote><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anne Applebaum cites scenes from Mark Twain and concludes that if Tom Sawyer were alive today, we would medicate him into submission: Try, if you can, to strip away the haze of nostalgia and sentiment through which we generally perceive Mark Twain\u2019s world, and imagine how a boy like Tom Sawyer would be regarded today. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,30],"tags":[89,390,1377,1619,2230],"class_list":["post-6119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","category-medicine","tag-adhd","tag-cd","tag-mark-twain","tag-odd","tag-tom-sawyer"],"yoast_head":"\n
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