Monday, May 9, 2011

The Prince and The Pauper

"Once, when his royal "sister," the grimly, holy Lady Mary, set herself to reason with him against the wisdom of of his course in pardoning so many people who would otherwise be jailed, or hanged or burned, and reminded him that their august late father's prisons had sometimes contained as high as sixty thousand convicts at one time, and that during his admirable reign he had delivered seventy-two thousand thieves and robbers over to death by the executioner, the boy was filled with generous indignation, and commanded her to go to her closet, and beseech God to take away the stone that was in her breast, and give her a human heart"

"The Prince And The Pauper" page 158. 



This quote really stuck out to me when I read it last night.  I thought it was funny and made Tom Canty an even more real character.  Throughout the book, Canty seemed to learn less and care more about the riches and rewards that come with being a King, instead of remembering his own life.  This sentence was the first time in a while that Tom had seemed like his old self, and it seemed like he had a heart again.  As I said before, I felt like it was done in a funny way, but I also think it showed that even though Tom had been subjected to the hardships in his life, he still remembered them while he was impersonating the King.  Did anyone else feel that Tom Canty had forgotten his past, and was simply becoming another monarch that didn't care about the poor, and only how many servants he had?

2 comments:

  1. I think Tom Canty did, for a brief moment, get caught up in his gilded reality. He loved the richness he felt, when he was temporarily royalty. However, underneath all the gold and glitter, Tom's true self was uncovered, where he no longer cared only about his riches, but of the poor people. This is shown when he is judging the trials, and he connects with the people he was once a kin to.

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  2. I agree with you that Tom Canty got caught up in the life of the rich and forgot his past. I think that it is very easy to get caught up in the moment and the situation that you are in, especially when it is something better than what you had before. However, I believe that as the novel progresses we begin to see the true Tom Canty shine through once again.

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