SPOIL-FREE SUMMARY
When Tom's father gets dragged off to debtor's prison, he sets himself up to provide for the family. But instead he gets blamed for a crime he didn't commit. Eventually sentenced to work on a ship with other young convicts, Tom is determined to get out. Because he knows if he doesn't, he won't survive his sentence.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Tom Tin is a young man with a love for his father and a fear of the sea. He is rather timid at first but gradually we learn that he can be heartless.
Midgely is another convict who becomes Tom's only friend. He is weak-willed, just barely getting by. For some reason he adores Tom and treats him like a big brother.
Penny is from a street gang. He thinks that Tom is someone called “The Smasher” and won't be told otherwise. He despises Midgely because he sees him as a rival for Tom's friendship.
Goodfellow is set up as a villain from the beginning. We are told the reason Tom and his family move is because they are evicted by him and had been evicted by him in their previous home.
PACING
One thing I was struck with was the pacing and the pattern of the story. I felt like the plot was meandering, not knowing quite where it was going. And when it did know, it took too long to get there.
Tom needed to become a convict. So he needed to be mistaken for a criminal and then found guilty. But by the time he actually made it to the ship, I was left with a bunch of events that I couldn't really make sense of.
Everything just happens to Tom. Which is probably a reason why the story feels slow.
TOM THE VICTIM
Tom is set up as a victim right away, his family being poor and having to move from place to place because Goodfellow won't leave them be. Not long after that, he goes to a school where he gets hit by the teacher. I felt bad for him of course. And as the story progresses, things go from bad to worse and for the most part, it's not Tom's fault.
Lawrence doesn't do what most author's do when their hero ends up being a victim as the main plot. He doesn't make Tom go on about how awful his life is, and depict everyone he meets as either dumb or evil. So that's a good point.
NO HELP FOR TOM
Unfortunately, Tom never gains a confidant. He never gets an adult who has real sympathy for him. Not in any real way, a way that says, yes, I know this is awful and it needs to be fixed.
Or someone who believes him when he says he was innocent of any wrongdong. Nor does he encounter a peer who is smarter, stronger, and maybe an actual benefit to developing his character in some way.
His only relationship, if you can call it that, is with Midgely. And for the majority of the story he just makes Tom look bad.
THE DIAMOND-SPOILERS
After his father has been taken away, Tom ends up finding a diamond besides a blind beggar. He realizes this could save his family and return his father. So, of course he steals it.
Oddly enough, the diamond feels like it has no place in the story. It has no affect on Tom because he loses it soon after. And the reason he tags along with grave robbers is to get away from the creepy blind man. Couldn't he have done that anyway?
THE GRAVEYARD ROBBERS
Tom meets an older man with a cart and ends up hitching a ride with him. But for some reason, he spends the whole day with this stranger. Perhaps he thought he would get closer to home? It isn't quite clear why and I was left confused. I get he was hungry, but he is fed right after he meets him, so he should have just left.
When he realizes the man is a grave robber he doesn't leave, he just obeys and helps with the rope. Tom admits he always just obeys people, so that's why he did it. I didn't see the logic in that.
How does being normally obedient cause you to help a stranger lift a dead body from a grave? For all intense purposes, Tom should have immediately ran off. But this starts a pattern in the story. Things tend to happen to Tom; He rarely causes things to happen. And when he does, he ends up failing anyway.
MEEL & GOODFELLOW
After Tom is accused of accosting a man, when in reality he was asking for help, he is taken by the police. He ends up meeting a lawyer named Mr. Meel.
Tom says that he owns a fortune and tells him all about the diamond. But I had read nothing that showed that Tom trusted anyone or had any friends. I guess he was desperate but he just comes off as foolish. It's obvious right away that Mr. Meel cares nothing about Tom and only wants his diamond.
By this time I only felt sympathy for Tom, no real affection. And now I just felt like he was dumb, and possibly inconsistently portrayed.
As for Goodfellow it is eventually revealed he is pulling the strings and after Tom again. But he is just not in the story enough for me to think of him.
THE LONG LOST TWIN-SPOILERS
The body of Tom's look-alike causes most of the trouble for Tom. But I never actually thought much about the identity of this person. I just assumed it was a coincidence. Why? Because there is no mention of Tom having any memories of a twin. Or having overheard something from his mother having lost another child, besides his sister. I expected hints to be set up.
When he is told he sounds just like The Smasher, causing Tom to think this boy lived near him, it didn't feel like any great revelation. He spends a large amount of time with Penny, and yet learns absolutely nothing about his twin.
So when Tom finally learns that he really did have a twin, I was left confused. Shouldn't there have been some more hints? Shouldn't Penny have revealed that the Smasher admitted he had never met his parents. Any modicum of being related would have helped. Similar mannerisms, or likes and dislikes. Anything other than looking similar and living near each other.
LEAVING HIM BEHIND
Tom plans his escape and lets Midgely believe he is taking him with him. But he admits to himself that it's a lie. Even after something awful happens to Midgely and he attacks who he thinks did it, he doesn't immediately assess his own selfish actions.
Only when his friend tells him to leave him behind does he change his mind. It takes far too long for him to change and I had to wonder why. Perhaps it confused me because I never quite understood who Tom was supposed to be. If he had been portrayed as ruthless before his enslavement, perhaps it would have made sense why it took so long for him to change.Which leads me to my next point...
WHO IS TOM?
I am not quite sure about exactly who Tom is. He likes his father. I don't know much about how he feels about his mother. He hates the sea and Goodfellow. He is desperate from the beginning of the story to the end. At first to provide for his family and then to escape his enslavement.
He is slightly arrogant because when he he first meets a poor old man, he thinks about how he wouldn't normally waste his time with someone like him. For some reason, he seems to think he is above the old man. He envisions how he will be wealthy and even more far above him.
He has little to no sympathy for anyone but himself. Not even Midgely, who, for the majority of the book, he uses and lies to. This aspect of his character makes him seem ruthless. But I couldn't say if this was how he developed, or how he always was because I never felt I knew him.
Tom has no clear arc. He attacks a bully and it's portrayed as if he lost his humanity. When in reality, it should have been where he gained it, as he finally showed real empathy and risked his own life for another whom he had previously been planning to use.
TRY AND TRY AGAIN-SPOILERS
I come back to the pattern that repeats itself in the story: things happening to Tom. Tom trying to do something and failing. And then things happening to him again.
After Tom escapes the ship, he realizes he is now stuck on an island and he can't do anything about it. So when an old woman and a man come along, saying they will take them home, they go along. And end up being brought back to the ship.
Again, Tom comes across as desparate and foolish, with very little agency of his own. He dug a hole. That's pretty much all he accomplishes in the whole story.
THE CLIMAX & THE CAPTAIN-SPOILERS
Near the end of the story, Tom gets transferred to another ship, this one set to travel around the globe. He is desparate to leave but can't. Luckily he finally ends up meeting the captain, who is his father. So once again, Tom doesn't accomplish anything, he is merely led by circumstances. In this case, dumb luck.
CONCLUSION
The plot is rather slow, due to the fact that for most of it, things just happen to Tom.
There aren't any relationships forged among the convicts so I had a hard time caring for anyone. At best I felt sympathy for characters like Midgely, at worst I often felt dislike for Tom, whose arc wasn't clear.
There are so few victories in the story, I can't help but think it could have been structured better.
It doesn't feel like it has a proper climax or ending as Tom merely tries to escape and then fails. And the ending felt like the author didn't know what to do, so he just threw Tom's father in and called it quits.
I give “The Convicts” one and a half stars.
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