Pastoral vs. Sublime Nature

So far in Tom Sawyer, the dominant view of nature has definitely been pastoral nature. It completely dominates life. However, the definitions of sublime and pastoral differ for different people in the novel. For example, Tom, who loves nature and wants to be a part of it as much as he can, sees almost all his interactions with nature as pastoral. For him, being in nature is peaceful and calming and an all around good feeling. He can "enter a dense wood, and pick his pathless way to the centre of it" quite easily. For Tom, that is natural; that is easy. It is being in the civil world that is difficult for him. So for Tom, nature in all its forms so far has been pastoral.

However, this view on nature is different for other people in the town. Aunt Polly, the teachers, and most of the adults are fearful of nature. They don't understand why Tom feels so comfortable out there, and are scared of things that are "natural." For them, a lot of the nature imagery shown so far is actually subtly sublime. Although not as obvious as a thunder storm suddenly coming down from the wrath of the gods, even a dense wood would be to them, unexplainable and a little scary. "Cardiff Hill lifted its soft green sides through a shimmering veil of heat, tinted with the purple of distance; a few birds floated on lazy wing high in the air; no other living thing was visible but some cows, and they were asleep" (57). This is the kind of nature that the adults like, with the cows who are already domesticated. But the nature that Tom likes, of the wood and wild and unexplored, they view almost as sublime.

This is a very interesting contrast of the different characters views on nature. So although pastoral has been much more prevalent throughout the novel, there have been some mentions of sublime as seen through other character's eyes. It will be interesting to see how much more of each type of nature there will be as the story progresses.