Pudd'nhead Wilson
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Pudd'nhead Wilson is a novel by Mark Twain. It was published in 1893–1894 by Century Magazine in seven installments, and is a detective story with some racial themes. The plot of this novel is a detective story, in which a series of identities — the judge's murderer, Tom, Chambers — must be sorted out. This structure highlights the problem of identity and one's ability to determine one's own identity. Broader issues of identity are the central ideas of this novel.
Twain's multiple plots and thrown-together style do serve to inform a central set of issues, with the twins, Pudd'nhead, and Tom and Chambers all serving as variations on a theme. The themes are slavery, tradition, and nature vs. nurture. To a lesser extent, Southern society and first impressions are also touched upon, and the novel is one of the first to use fingerprints as a means of unique identification, as it was not until 1897 that the world's first Fingerprint Bureau opened in Calcutta.
One of Twain's major goals in this book was to exploit the true nature of Racism at that period. Twain used comic relief as a way to divulge his theme. The purpose of a comic relief is to address his or her opinion in a less serious way, yet persuade the reader into thinking the writers thoughts. Twain's use of satire is visible throughtout the book. Twain's use of colloquialism(dialect) and local color as features of Naturalism to convey his theme, is impressive and ahead for his time.
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[edit] Characters
One of the central plot twists in the novel is the switched identities of the man known as Tom Driscoll, a dissolute slave-owner, and the man known as “Chambers”, a mulatto slave.
[edit] Thomas Driscoll
Thomas a Becket Driscoll is the son of Percy Driscoll. Tom is switched with Roxy's baby Chambers when he is only a few months old, and is called “Chambers” from then on. “Chambers” is raised as a slave and is purchased by Judge Driscoll, childless and sad, when the judge's brother Percy dies, to prevent “Tom” from selling him “down the river”. “Chambers” is a decent young man who is often forced to fight bullies for “Tom”. He was kind and always respectful towards “Tom” but yet receives brutal hate from his master. He speaks in broken English that was a black dialect spoken during slavery.
[edit] Chambers
Valet de Chambre is Roxy's son. Chambers is 1/32 black, and as Roxy's son, was born into slavery. At a young age he is switched by his mother with Thomas a Becket Driscoll, a white child who shares his birthday and looks just like him. From then on he is known as “Tom,” and is raised as the white heir to a large estate. “Tom”, the focus of the novel, is spoiled, vicious, and wicked. In his early year he has an intense hate for “Chambers” even though “Chambers” protected “Tom” and saved his life on numerous occasions. "Tom's" feelings and attitude portray him as the embodiment of human folly. His weakness for gambling leads him into debt, and his uncle (and adoptive father) Judge Driscoll, frequently disinherits him, only to rewrite his will yet again.
[edit] The Twins
Luigi and Angelo Capello, a set of near-identical twins, appear in Dawson's Landing in reply to an ad placed by Aunt Patsy, who is looking for a boarder. They say they are looking to relax after years of traveling the world. They claim to be the children of an Italian nobleman who was forced to flee Italy after a revolution and died soon afterward. In Twain's original draft of the book, the twins are conjoined; in the text, there are hints that they still are, such as the fact that they were their parents' "only child", they sleep together, they play piano together, and they had an early career as sideshow performers.
Twain touches on a repeating theme of nudity with the twins, taking time to explain why they slept together in the nude as a matter-of-fact consequence of the warm weather, leaving the reader a red-herring of a paragraph with no obvious point. Twain has made other seemingly inconsequenctial nude scenes in his books such as the scene on the raft where Huck and Jim undressed for swimming and didn't bother to put their clothes back on, perhaps for lack of civility or perhaps as a show of their new-found freedom. Twain belabored the topic of clothing vs. society in his "Roughing It" piece on Hawaii where there had been no clothing prior to the white explorers' arrival. Source
[edit] Media
A movie in 1916 and a made-for-tv movie in 1984 was based on the book.
[edit] External links
