A family was practically destroyed once by a spoiled, self-centered,
and selfish child. There were signs and warnings, had one been paying attention.
I thought about that family last month when I re-read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry
Finn. I do that every decade or so and find it fascinating how my
perception changes with age, experience and education.
On first reading, way back in high school, I regarded both
boys as simply high-spirited youngsters. Some writers even now refer to them as
“all-American boys.” I have even seen a piece of serious scholarship that actually
described Tom Sawyer as the symbol of “Yankee ingenuity and entrepreneurship.”
Now, I see Huckleberry Finn as a character possessing some
potential for growth and maturity. He has occasional sparks of goodnesss,
although he is much too slow and passive to use it effectively.
Tom Sawyer, on the other hand, I would best describe with the
use of the pop-psychology term “sociopath.” He is self-centered and careless to
the point of endangering the lives of those around him. He almost leads his childhood
sweetheart to her death by carelessly luring her beyond the realm of safety in
a cave. He allows his family and friends to mourn his death before miraculously
appearing at his own funeral.
Tom is capable of good, we see early on, but he uses it so
rarely that is penchant for the bad and careless is even more painful to watch.
In Huckleberry Finn,
he repeatedly, and with insightful cruelty, threatens the life of the slave
Jim, perhaps the most noble character in either book.
Tom is a person who, in order to feed his own self-satisfying
fantasy-life, would do great damage not only to all around him, but to his
family and best friends as well. He is a pre-civil war “Ferris Bueller.”
Which brings me to the initial subject of today’s rant. The
person I knew started out as simply a rebellions boy. To his great misfortune,
he was “cute and charming.” It started with such seemingly harmless things as
being a finicky eater, not caring that his mother had to fix a separate meal
for him. Disobediences for which siblings had been severely punished were overlooked
in him. Cruelty to a playmate was explained by the claim that he was just “all
boy.” (This statement is the prevalent euphemism for sociopathic behavior throughout
our part of the world.)
Cruelty to others gave permission for a greater act of misbehavior,
the next more serious still. Before he reached adulthood, his only concern on any
given day was what might bring him pleasure. Illegal behavior cost his family
again and again. Provided a stake with which to earn a living, he squandered it
in bad decisions.
Perhaps the most obvious part of the pattern was that each
outrageous act forgiven or overlooked led to ones more outrageous still. Observers
looking for a bottom to his reckless behavior never saw one until his looks,
his luck, and his support ran out, leaving ruin raining down all about him.
That is what comes of overlooking errant actions because the
perpetrator is considered cute, charismatic, or contemptuous of cultural norms.
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| Just thinking. |
