Life — June 15, 1922 — page 9: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a satirical cartoon referencing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's concept of "Heaven." The joke presents a afterlife scenario where Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain's fictional character) faces a humorous problem: convincing a gang of people to whitewash a fence—a famous scene from Twain's novel where Tom cleverly manipulates others into doing his chores. The satire appears to mock Doyle's idealized vision of heaven by suggesting that even in paradise, the mundane frustrations of life persist. The cartoon humorously suggests that Tom Sawyer's characteristic cunning and manipulation would be necessary even in the afterlife, implying heaven might not be as perfectly blissful as Doyle imagined. The joke relies on readers' familiarity with both Twain's novel and Doyle's spiritualist beliefs.