Monologue text
'The adventures of Tom Sawyer'
by Mark Twain
Information
The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Role: Huck Finn
Monologue synopsis: Huck Finn's wealth and the fact that he
was now under the Widow Douglas' protection introduced him into
society and his sufferings were almost more than he could bear. The
widow's servants kept him clean and neat, combed and brushed, and
they bedded him nightly in unsympathetic sheets that had not one
little spot or stain which he could press to his heart and know for
a friend. He had to eat with a knife and fork; he had to use napkin,
cup, and plate; he had to learn his book, he had to go to church; he
had to talk so properly that speech was become insipid in his mouth;
whitherso- ever he turned, the bars and shackles of civilization
shut him in and bound him hand and foot. He bravely bore his
miseries three weeks, and then one day turned up missing. For
forty-eight hours the widow hunted for him everywhere in great
distress. The public were profoundly concerned; they searched high
and low, they dragged the river for his body. Early the third
morning Tom Sawyer wisely went poking among some old empty hogsheads
down behind the abandoned slaughter-house, and in one of them he
found the refugee. Huck had slept there; he had just breakfasted
upon some stolen odds and ends of food, and was lying off, now, in
comfort, with his pipe. He was unkempt, uncombed, and clad in the
same old ruin of rags that had made him picturesque in the days when
he was free and happy. Tom routed him out, told him the trouble he
had been causing, and urged him to go home. This monologue is his
answer to Tom.
Monologue
Huck Finn: (Huck's face lost its tranquil content, and
took a melancholy cast)
-Don't talk about it, Tom. I've tried it, and it don't work; it
don't work, Tom. It ain't for me; I ain't used to it. The widder's
good to me, and friendly; but I can't stand them ways. She makes me
get up just at the same time every morning; she makes me wash, they
comb me all to thunder; she won't let me sleep in the woodshed; I
got to wear them blamed clothes that just smothers me, Tom; they
don't seem to any air git through 'em, somehow; and they're so
rotten nice that I can't set down, nor lay down, nor roll around
anywher's; I hain't slid on a cellar-door for... well, it 'pears to
be years; I got to go to church and I hate them ornery sermons! I
can't ketch a fly in there, I can't chaw. I got to wear shoes all
Sunday. The widder eats by a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she
gits up by a bell. Everything's so awful regular a body can't stand
it. It's awful to be tied up so. And grub comes too easy... I don't
take no interest in vittles, that way. I got to ask to go a-fishing;
I got to ask to go in a-swimming... dern'd if I hain't got to ask to
do everything. Well, I'd got to talk so nice it wasn't no comfort...
I'd got to go up in the attic and rip out awhile, every day, to git
a taste in my mouth, or I'd a died, Tom. The widder wouldn't let me
smoke; she wouldn't let me yell, she wouldn't let me gape, nor
stretch, nor scratch, before folks [Then with a spasm of special
irritation and injury] And dad fetch it, she prayed all the time! I
never see such a woman! I HAD to shove, Tom - I just had to. And
besides, that school's going to open, and I'd a had to go to it -
well, I wouldn't stand THAT, Tom. Looky-here, Tom, being rich ain't
what it's cracked up to be. It's just worry and worry, and sweat and
sweat, and a-wishing you was dead all the time. Now these clothes
suits me, and this bar'l suits me, and I ain't ever going to shake 'em
any more. Tom, I wouldn't ever got into all this trouble if it
hadn't 'a' ben for that money; now you just take my sheer of it
along with your'n, and gimme a ten-center sometimes -- not many
times, becuz I don't give a dern for a thing 'thout it's tollable
hard to git -- and you go and beg off for me with the widder. No,
Tom, I won't be rich, and I won't live in them cussed smothery
houses. I like the woods, and the river, and hogsheads, and I'll
stick to 'em, too. Blame it all! just as we'd got guns, and a cave,
and all just fixed to rob, here this dern foolishness has got to
come up and spile it all!
~An excerpt from The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer
by Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)~
(Adaptated for theatre by Alice Katsavou)
Books (about Tom Sawyer)
- Book: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
- Book: Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer (Barron's Book Notes)
- Book: The adventures of Tom Sawyer - Study Guide
- Audio CD: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
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