Introduction
In the story “The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson”, Mark Twain successfully brings out the double standards of slavery and racism of the nineteenth United States. Pudd’nhead Wilson is the ironic tale of a man who is born a slave but brought up as the heir to wealthy estate, thanks to a switch made while the babies were still in the cradle. As rightly pointed out by Rasmussen (2003), the “the novel’s central character is not the eponymous Pudd’nhead but Roxy, a mostly white slave.”
Roxy is only one-sixteenth black but that is enough to make her and her son a slave in the 1830 Missouri. The novel is a detective story, where Pudd’nhead Wilson plays just one of the many characters, until the very end when he solves the murder mystery and in the process reveals a twenty three year old secret and brings doom to the central characters. Through a vehicle of a detective story, Mark Twain is able to protest racial inequalities and social inequalities while showing the importance of a person’s identity.
Discussion
The basic premise of the story is the racism and slavery of the time. Although it is debated whether Twain was Protesting against racism or was in fact prejudiced himself, “Pudd’nhead Wilson is Mark Twain’s most direct and sustained imaginative engagement with issues of slavery and race”. In this essay we shall try to establish that Twain was in fact protesting this social ill of his times through this novel.
At the very beginning we realize that neither Roxy nor her son looks black but because of the unfortunate accident of having a single black ancestor they are doomed to a life of slavery. By repeatedly pointing out the fact that the central characters are only sixteen and thirty one parts black, Mark Twain has successfully brought out the irony of their fate. The reasons which prompt Roxy to switch her seven month old child with her master’s bring out the uncertainty of a slaves life. As a slave she had no identity of her own and could be sold to anyone, anywhere at the master’s whim. The fear that a similar fate would befall her son prompts her to switch the babies. This switch forms the basis of the entire novel and was in some ways responsible for Thomas a Brackett Driscoll (Tom) growing up to be a spoilt brat.
According to Howe (1992), Twain challenges “the arbitrary racial distinctions of color by dramatizing a mulatto’s ability to live undetected as an aristocrat for twenty years”. However, Howe is of the view that far from protesting against the racism, Twain plays “right into negro phobic rhetoric of the 1890s” and reveals his own prejudices when towards the end the criminal is revealed to be a slave. This may be true, but the irony and opposition towards slavery throughout the novel is too strong to be ignored.
One of Pudd’nhead Wilson’s maxims is that “training is everything”. Yet Twain’s writing “alternates between training and race to define why people act as they do” (Mitchell, 1987). On one hand, we can attribute Tom’s spoilt brat behavior and his bad habits to the fact that he was spoilt since he was a baby by everyone including his “nanny”. Roxy, Tom’s biologically mother, was blind to her son’s defects and over-indulged him which might have led to his growing up to be a selfish individual. On the other hand, when he refuses to the duel with Luigi, Roxy is livid with him and puts the blame squarely on the “one drop of nigger blood”.
Yet, at the same time, Roxy also reveals that besides that one drop of “nigger blood” he had also inherited the blood of the highest order from several other people. She is anguished that despite coming from such good ancestry, it is the one drop of “nigger blood” which has the predominant affect on his character. On the surface, this seems to support the Negro phobic logic of the times that resulted in someone who was only one in thirty two part Negro to be born a slave.
But, if we delve deeper into Tom’s character we realize that it was nurture rather than nature which was responsible for turning Tom into what he was. He had inherited that one drop of “nigger blood” from Roxy, who was not only a God fearing woman but also an extremely intelligent one. This has also been pointed out by Mitchell (1987). After the babies are switched, Chambers learns to act as “meek and humble” while Tom is encouraged and indulged in all his desires. Obviously, training and not “Race” is to blame for Tom growing up to be a criminal. Thus, Twain, in his ironic style, successfully brings out the double standards regarding racism.
The racial inequalities of the time are brought into sharp focus by the problems faced by Roxy through her life. Although an extremely intelligent woman, she is forced by the unfortunate accident of birth into a life of slavery. Her one deception was to try and get her son out of this life of slavery. Yet, despite her noblest intentions, she finds herself in a position where her own son treats her with contempt and disdain. Even after she is freed of slavery by her master, it is easy for her son to sell her again into slavery.
Roxy’s initial deception and her willingness to go back into slavery were all for the sake of her son so that he may not have to live the same life of misery that she had had to lead. However, in end, her son is sold in slavery “down the river”, the very fate she was trying to avoid when she had switched the babies 20 years ago. The irony of the whole situation cannot be missed. And the double standards prevailing at the time is even starker. A man who was considered an aristocrat and a “white” for over twenty years, suddenly became a slave and was sold only because of the discovery of the accident of his birth.
If racism is the main underlying theme of the novel, another important problem of the time is also successfully pointed out and protested by Twain. This is the problem of social inequality and the accompanying prejudice. The people of Dawson’s Landing are extremely prejudiced people who seem to form an idea and stick to it forever. Once they label David Wilson Pudd’nhead due to just one unfortunate remark, it takes him twenty years to sake off this prejudice.
Similarly, the Italian twins are initially revered because of their supposed noble background and when it is found that they are assassins, Judge Driscoll considers below him to even get into a duel with them. When Judge Driscoll is murdered, the people of Dawson’s Landing are quick to believe that the twins must be responsible. When Wilson is fighting there case it the court, it is not enough to prove that the twins did not commit the murder but Tom did. He also goes on to prove that Tom is in fact a Negro, thus sealing his fate.
The prejudices and social inequalities of the time are clearly highlighted and protested by Twain in his ironic fashion through these incidents. It is further highlighted in the way Roxy brings up her two charges, Tom and Chambers. While Tom grows up to be refined gentleman with Yale education, Chambers is an uneducated “slave” who cannot even speak “proper English”. The biggest horror of slavery is not the physical abuse, which it seems is not as big a problem in Dawson’s Landing as it is “down the river”, but the complete loss of a slave’s selfhood. (Griffith, 1976). The slaves did not even have the privilege to a surname and Chambers, although born to father of high blood, is still a slave.
When Tom is considered an aristocrat, all his follies are forgiven and the worst fortune that can befall him is being disinherited from his uncle’s will. Although for a man who was into drinking and gambling, even this would have been a huge blow, this was nothing compared to the misfortune that befalls him once it is discovered that he is a Negro. Even for the salves, the worst misfortune that could befall them was being “sold down the river” and ironically, once it is discovered that Tom is a slave he is met with the same fate. This social hypocrisy and social inequality which is so pleasantly pointed out and protested by Twain makes Pudd’nhead Wilson an interesting novel on the subject of racism and social inequalities.
Works Cited
Howe, Lawrence. “Race, Genealogy, and Genre in Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 46.4 (1992): 495-516. University of California Press. 2008. Web.
Mitchell, Lee Clark. “’De Nigger in You’: Race or Training in Pudd’nhead Wilson.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 42.3 (1987): 295-312. University of California Press. 2008. Web.
Griffith, Clark. “Pudd’nhead Wilson as Dark Comedy.” ELH 43.2 (1976): 209-226. The john Hopkins University Press. 2008. Web.
Rasmussen, Kent. “The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson (Book).” Library Journal 128.19 (2003): 116-115. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. 2008. Web.
“The University of Virginia Library.” The Electronic text Center. Pudd’nhead’ Sources. 2008. Web.
“The University of Virginia Library.” The Electronic text Center. The Tragedy of pudd’nhead Wilson. 2008. Web.