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NOVELS: Pudd'nhead Wilson |
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| The setting of this novel is in a
village called Dason’s Landing, on the
Mississippi River. The story is an irony about
two babies, one free, one a slave, that are
switched in their cradles. Plessy, who is only
part African American and could easily pass for
white, is switched at birh with a white child. He
is accepted as white, and the other child, Tom,
is raised as a slave. As they grow up, it is not
their race that determins the children’s
place in society, but how they are raised. Inthe
end, the true identities are discovered and
apparent social order is restored. This novel mainly focuses on the social systems that deteremine class and identity in the pre-Civil War society: race, gender, ancestry, and law. These factors are what forms the social classes of Dawson’s Landing. It is Mark Twains most direct work on slavery, however, there is yet no agreement about what it’s saying. In general, the book explores the institution of slavery and the superficiality of racial prejudice. The tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson originally was published along with Those Extraordinary Twins. It was written in 1894, at a time when Jim Crow laws were becoming common in the South, and was published two years before Plessy v. Ferguson, where the Supreme Court declared segregation constitutional. The book is a tragedy, however, it has a good deal of humor throughout it, and doesn’t seem to be a tragedy at all in some ways. Mark Twain employs the social systems of race, gender, ancestry, and law as the main themes of this story. All of the themes are interconnected throughout the book, and serve as a look at the South before the Civil War. Even though it is called a tragedy, Pudd’nhead Wilson, a character in the book, is a symbol of the American success story in his rise to popularity and fame from virtual obscurity in this story. Pudd’nhead Wilson is a classic model of Mark Twain’s use of irony and dialogue. The book also makes use of plot twists, tragedy, and subtle humor. The fact that the plot is complex and that there are different themes working together throughout the book makes this story interesting and more detailed. |