Response to Tom Sawyer

Revenge
by Matt Thurman

Revenge is a callous motive that all humans acquire at some point, yet are not usually proud of. This is caused by another person's action that infuriates your entire being, and affects your state of mind. Such rage may result in an atrocious action, simply just a grudge that expands nowhere, or maybe even a thought of resentment that quickly fades away into forgiveness. Revenge is an emotion that can remain in one’s heart, though it is something that needs to be overcome to enable friendship.

.

During life's treacherous yet also prodigious journey, many occurrences will happen, whether they are fortunate things, or maybe unfortunate things. The novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer has many moments of this case. Anyway, on this challenging journey many obstacles interfere with our actions, as this is what might cause us to resent against them. An example would be in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, when Tom and Becky were talking about becoming engaged to each other. Then Tom slipped out to talk about how he almost got engaged to another girl, which placed Becky in an outrage! Ever since that moment, Becky held a grudge towards Tom because of his "ignorance". Her form of revenge was to watch another of her friends spill ink onto Tom's journal, and keep mum about it. Although this may seem a weak type of revenge, the journal was an important belonging to Tom, and this destruction to it may be critical to him. Becky did continue her feelings in this same way for a while, however they abated until they finally became friends again. Revenge sometimes can be looked at in many views, and also can be a challenging concept to ponder. However, revenge doesn't need to be carried out if everyone can accept another's decisions and actions, therefore making the world a better place.

.

Life can bring many varieties of people into the world. Whether these people are pleasant or repulsive, there still is a mature way to react to their actions. Unfortunately, there are few humans who choose not to react maturely to these differences among them, causing quandaries within the atmosphere. For example, in the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a man named Injun Joe decided not to react in such a mature manner. According to him, a man abused him horrifically, apparently horsewhipping him. Now he is dead, therefore Injun Joe is unable to get revenge on that man, so he decides to take it out on his wife, who is completely innocent. This is definitely an extremely cruel style of revenge, knowing that who he took the revenge on wasn't even the perpetrator. When one avenges another, then generally the victim of that revenge thrashes back. Overall, this creates a Dystopian vision that may never end.

.

The key to subduing revenge is to forgive. When one can forgive, the other feels that they are now neutral with their emotions within each other, allowing them to forget about what troubles they have made for one another. Revenge can lead into many horrendous conclusions, though transforming this attribute into forgiveness is the key to an excellent rapport with others.