Cadets of Temperance rules
The Cadets of Temperance was a juvenile organization in St. Petersburg that Tom Sawyer joined, drawn not by its moral aims but by the "showy character of their 'regalia.'" The rules required members to promise to abstain from smoking, chewing tobacco, and profanity for as long as they remained in the order. Tom soon discovered a paradoxical psychological truth: "to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing." The prohibition itself generated an intense, tormenting desire to drink and swear, a desire that only the hope of displaying himself in the red sash of the Cadets kept him from immediately resigning.
The Lure of the Regalia and the Deathbed Hope
Tom's initial attraction to the Cadets was purely aesthetic and social. He cared nothing for temperance but was captivated by the uniform. His commitment lasted less than forty-eight hours before he began looking for a way out. He fixed his hopes on the impending death of old Judge Frazer, the justice of the peace, whose high office would guarantee a large public funeral—a perfect occasion for the Cadets to parade in their regalia. For three days Tom was "deeply concerned about the Judge's condition and hungry for news of it," his hopes rising and falling with the Judge's fluctuating health. When the Judge was pronounced on the mend and then convalescent, Tom was disgusted and felt a sense of injury. He handed in his resignation at once. That very night, the Judge suffered a relapse and died. Tom resolved "that he would never trust a man like that again."
The Paradox of Prohibition and Freedom
The funeral was indeed a fine spectacle, with the Cadets parading in a style "calculated to kill the late member with envy." But Tom was now a free boy again. He found to his surprise that he no longer wanted to drink or swear. "The simple fact that he could, took the desire away, and the charm of it." The rules had created the very temptation they were meant to suppress; once the external prohibition was removed, the internal compulsion vanished. This episode illustrates a key psychological insight about Tom: his rebellious nature is not a fixed preference for vice but a reaction against constraint. The Cadets of Temperance rules, intended to reform him, instead taught him that the power of a rule lies not in its content but in the fact that it is a rule to be broken.
