Pudd'nhead Wilson: Twain's Dark Satire of Race and Identity

The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson: Publication and Thematic Eclecticism. The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson is perhaps Twain's most eclectic enterprise. While Huckleberry Finn marked the beginning of Twain's own publishing house—a venture that eventually left him bankrupt—The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson joined Sam Clemens's entrepreneurial spirit with Mark Twain's dark satire. Published in 1883, the novel blends many of Twain's interests and major themes.

Wilson's reliance on fingerprinting highlights the importance of science. The role reversal of Thomas a Becket Driscoll and Valet de Chambre raises questions of racism, slavery, and identity. Tom and Roxy's criminal behavior place accountability and responsibility at the fore of the novel. And underscoring all of the aforementioned themes is Twain's return to the doppelganger, or doubled character.

Although the novel was not one of Twain's biggest sellers during his lifetime and still has not equaled in fame or readership Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Clemens used his character's maxims, which open each chapter, in other ventures. The Century Magazine promoted Twain's latest novel with the inclusion of "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar for 1884." The small pocket calendar included samples of Wilson's aphorisms and a description of fingerprinting techniques according to Twain's narrative. Such aphorisms would resurface again as a chapter in Following the Equator. The novel may not have been the success Twain had hoped for, but the character and his aphorisms have been indelibly etched in our cultural dictionary.

Plot Structure and Courtroom Resolution. Set in Dawson's Landing, Missouri (another incarnation of Hannibal), The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson has three main plots. The first follows the alienated Northerner, David "Pudd'nhead" Wilson, who redeems himself in the final courtroom drama. The second follows Roxy, her beloved son, Valet de Chambre; and her master's child, Thomas a Becket Driscoll, whom she switches with her own son when they are young so that her son will never be sold away from her. The third introduces Luigi and Angelo Capello, the dashing European twins who upset the town first through their charm, then through the drama surrounding the stolen knife, and finally through their trial for Judge Driscoll's murder. All three plots are merged nicely as Pudd'nhead Wilson redeems his reputation by using his understanding of the law and study of the forensic science of fingerprinting to absolve the Capello twins of murder and reveal the switch of Tom and Roxy's true son.

Slavery, Identity, and the Nature-versus-Nurture Debate. Through the switch of Tom and Chambers, Twain is able to illustrate more distinctly the disadvantages and inhumanity of slavery. Roxy, the mulatto slave who could pass for white, has a child who is identical in every way to her master's child except in his social, economic, and legal status. In the opening chapters, the narrator goes to great lengths to emphasize the unjustifiable discrepancies that exist in this society. Although "to all intents and purposes Roxy was as white as anybody, . . . the one sixteenth of her which was black outvoted the other fifteen parts and made her a Negro," and her son, who was "thirty-one parts white," was also a slave.

The comparison between Tom and his half brother, Chambers, is also significantly developed. Despite their identical physical appearance, the vast difference in their clothes and treatment within the Driscoll household is clearly portrayed. Although her anguish cannot excuse her later actions, Roxy's decision to switch the children results from her realization that the difference between her son and Tom is superimposed on them by society and men like Driscoll. The only other alternative Roxy can conceive is murdering her own son and committing suicide. With such an alternative, it is clear that Roxy's decision to switch the infants is purely maternal and not intentionally malicious.

Forensic Science and Narrative Resolution. Twain, however, does not leave the novel with such a simple rendering of the condition of slavery. The novel's focus on the switch eventually becomes a question of nature versus nurture. Tom, who is really the slave, steals and murders his own uncle over debts and deeds. At the end of the novel, his actions are accounted for by his black blood and responded to by selling him down river. Chambers, the real heir to the Driscoll estate, is left a white man uncomfortable with his inherited privileges. As the narrative states: "His manners were the manners of a slave. Money and fine clothes could not mend these defects or cover them up; they only made them more glaring and the more pathetic." The drama of the murder trial and the role of forensic science in the novel justify close attention. Both provide catalysts for the narrative's determination of when and how Chambers's and Tom's true identities will be revealed. However, as important as these other plots are, they should not overshadow the social commentary of the novel.

For Discussion or Writing.
1. What is the tragedy in The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson?

2. The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson includes many of Twain's central themes. The use of science, the inequality of racism, questions of identity, issues of criminality, complexities of doubled characters are all present throughout the novel. Choose one of these themes and trace its development in the course of the novel.

3. The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson blends two narratives: the story of Roxy's twins and the Siamese twins, or those extraordinary twins. Compare the use of the extraordinary twins as they appear in the novel to their development in "Those Extraordinary Twins."

4. Several different versions (the Century Magazine, Marginal Illustrations of the 1894 publication, Harper & Brother edition illustrations in 1899, and the Édition de Luxe of 1899) of The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson included different illustrations. Compare and contrast the effectiveness of two different publications' illustrations.

5. Choose one of Pudd'nhead Wilson's aphorisms and test its validity. Does it connect in any way to the chapter it prefaces? Does it connect in any way to the novel's themes? Does it connect in any way to real life?