Jeff Shettler

History 579

Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson

In Pudd’nhead Wilson, one of Mark Twain’s darker novels, Twain explorers the duplicities engrained in the society of the south. Published in 1894, this story is set in antebellum Missouri, and uses the slave culture to illustrate how fragile a class society based on racial heirarchies can be.

In the opening chapters we meet several characters who set up the duplicities of this society. David Wilson is an attorney who has just moved to the town of Dawson’s Landing in Missouri. Twain sets Wilson up as one of the smartest men in the town, but when he makes a satirical joke about killing half a dog, the townspeople, who can only understand this attempt at humor in strictly literal terms, take him to be a “pudd’nhead.” This is how he remains in their eyes twenty years; they even nickname him “Pudd’nhead” Wilson. Although he can not get work in his chosen profession as a lawyer in Dawson’s Landing, with his “Scotch patience and pluck he resolved to live down his reputation and work his way into the legal field yet.” For twenty years he lived as a surveyor and accountant, trying to outlive his name.

We next meet Roxy, a slave. Twain sets up the situation so that the reader first hears Roxy, rather then sees her. He introduces the character by having the reader overhear her conversation outside of Pudd’nhead Wilson’s window. For most readers, her manner of speech would conjure an image of a poor southern black slave. We soon learn, however, that Roxy – who has only 1/16 black “blood” – appears as “white” as anyone else in the novel. But, Twain tells us, it is this one part that “outvotes the other fifteen parts that are white.” Roxy’s job in her household is to take care of the then master’s child, a son named Tom Driscoll. Roxy also has a son of her own, named Valet de Chambers, who is also as white as Roxy (1/32 part black), but born a slave. No one other than Roxy can tell the two boys apart, except for the way that she dresses them. Even Tom’s father has to ask which one of the boys is his when they are in the bath together.

When Roxy realizes how easy it could be to be “sold down the river” she fears for her son’s life. She comes up with a plan to switch the babies by exchanging their cloths. The new Tom, who has 1/32 black blood, making him a slave, is now raised as the master, and the new Chambers, who was born the master, is now raised as the slave. This switch becomes the heart of the story.

The book then skims over twenty years, showing Tom to be growing up as mean, vindictive master who beats up Chambers to make Tom feel better about himself. When the master of the house dies, Roxy finds out that his will has set her free and she embarks on a life as a riverboat chambermaid. Tom and Valet are sent to live with Judge Driscoll, and Tom continues his life as a mean, self-centered bully. He spends some time in school, but is uninterested, and then moves to the city and builds up large gambling debt. After having the Judge pay off his debt and disinherit him once, he continues to gamble and builds more debt. To pay off this debt, Tom turns to stealing from the residents of Dawson’s Landing by breaking into their homes dressed as a woman.

It is at this time that Roxy loses all of the money that she had made working on the riverboat when the New Orleans bank in which she had an account goes bust. Broke and unable to work due to pain, she returns to Dawson’s Landing to blackmail Tom with the truth about his heritage. Tom is shocked by the news, and for a time has trouble living in white society. He soon returns to his old ways, however, and once again accumulates a large gambling debt.

Shifting the focus of the story, Twain then introduces his readers to a pair of Italian twins, who become the toast of the town. Tom runs afoul of one of the twins in a matter of honor, but instead of challenging the man to a duel, Tom takes him to court. Judge Driscoll, a member of the Founding Fathers of Virginia, considers this an affront to the honor of the family, and fights the duel himself, setting Tom up as an outsider for being too cowardly to fight a duel on his own. This duel helps Wilson earn some respect from the community as he was a second to the Italian, Luigi.

When Tom, after being disinherited, and then reinherited again, realizes how precarious his situation is, he swears off gambling, but still must pay off the remainder of his debt. He decides to raise the funds by breaking into the Judge’s strongbox and stealing the money. In the midst of this burglary, however, the Judge discovers Tom and Tom ends up killing him, though Tom frames the Italians for the murder. Wilson finally gets to put his legal skills into practice, and using fingerprints that he had taken as a hobby throughout the book, he proves the twins innocent. He also reveals that the guilty party is Tom, whose real identity is exposed. As a slave and in accordance with the laws of the community, he is pardoned for the crime but sold down the river, where he dies working on a farm. Wilson’s reputation is fully established and Chambers is restored to his place as master of the Driscoll house.

Eric J. Sundquist, Mark Twain and Homer Plessey

This article discusses the parallels between Twain’s Puddn’head Wilson and Plessey v. Ferguson and the “one drop of nigger blood” principle used in the south to determine race. Plessey, like the slave Roxy from Twain’s novel, was considered black due to a small percentage of black blood. Sundquist argues that Twain, at least in part, was writing about the Supreme Court case. Plessey was arrested for riding in the white section of a train, although for all outward appearances he would have passed for white.

Lee Clark Mitchell, “Da Nigger in You”, Race or Training in Pudden’head Wilson

Mitchell examines the nature vs. nurture debate prevalent in Pudden’head Wilson. He poses the question whether it the upbringing of Tom and Chambers that make them the way they are – Tom being mean and spiteful and Chambers being kind a gentle – or is it the fact that Tom has 1/32 part black blood in him and Chambers is, as far as we know, fully white. This is explored from the standpoint of the outward appearances of the different characters in the book and how they change over time. Wilson, changing from what the town sees as a “puddn’head” to a respectable citizens, seems to result from his apparent turn toward supporting Jim Crow. Tom also sees a change in himself, although short lived, when he finds out about his heritage.

Vince Brewton, “An Honour as well as a Pleasure”: Dueling, Violence, and Race in Pudd'nhead Wilson

This article focuses on the significance of the dueling that is recounted throughout the book. Brewton explores not only the duel between the Judge and Luigi, but the dueling in words and in the conflict between the characters. Roxy has a duel of words with a dark slave who wants to court her, and Tom had to convince himself through a duel of self deception that selling his mother down the river was for the greater good. A Brewton point out, the honor system reinforces the slave system with the need to punish any affront immediately, giving the slave owners the will to beat their slaves. These systems have everything to do with maintaining one’s place in society, making upward movement in the strict social structure almost impossible due to a society that refuses to accept change.