Einstein's Examples

** By ** ** Einstein’s Examples ** In the story The Cat and the Pain Killer, adapted from “The adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain, Tom feels different at the end of the story than he does when he learns Becky is ill. Tom’s experience during the story causes this change. At first Tom is disinterested in everything after Becky becomes ill. After tricking his aunt into thinking he was taking his pain killer, he became more animated. In the text it states, “Tom felt it was time to wake up from his long state of sickness and heartache. So he thought over various plans for relief and finally hit upon the idea of professing to be fond of pain killer.” This demonstrates that coming up with plans to deceive his aunt cheered Tom up.
 * Open Ended Question **

Also, Aunt Polly’s quack treatments did help Tom, but not in the way she expected. The treatments made Tom feel even worse than before. Ironically, Tom’s efforts to get rid of the medicine led him to feel livelier. In the text it states," What was cruelty to a cat might be cruelty to boy,too." This shows that even Aunt Polly, who administered the medicine, eventually realized that the treatments may have caused Tom distress. The text also says,"Tom stopped reacting to the treatments." And later,"looking up in his face with a slight twinkle peeping through his seriousness." This demonstrates how Tom was much more animated after getting rid of his medicines, having never showed much reaction to it, except maybe distaste. Similar to Tom, children like to fool their elders into thinking they are being well behaved when they aren't. For instance, when I was younger, I never studied when my parents told me to, and played on the computer instead. This relates to Tom's experience, because he fooled his aunt into thinking he was taking the Pain-Killer when he was in fact pouring it into a crack in the sitting room floor. In conclusion, Aunt Polly's quack treatments influenced Tom through his experience of trying to dispose of them.

media type="custom" key="20890212"