puddnhead

Chapter Analyses

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Chapter 1: "Pudd'nhead"

The first chapter sets the stage for the major of the recurrent theme in this book, racism. It also briefly and subtly touches on a major factor in how it was able to propagate itself so effectively. It is made clear in the beginning of the story, that Roxy, one of the leading characters, is mostly white; so much so that if you didn't know it through documentation, you'd never know it at all. Essentially, she is a young, attractive white woman, with a small fraction of black blood in her ancestry: "To all intents and purposes, Roxy was as white as anybody, but the one sixteenth of her which was black outvoted the other fifteen parts and made her a Negro" (Twain 29). Her lack of education and social status puts her in the same place as culture at the time put all of the black people: the bottom rung.

David Wilson, a smart, aspiring young man from New York, fresh out of college and a year of law school. He had come to Dawson's Landing, Missouri with the intentions of making his fortune. Along with a polished intellect and sense of humor, he brought with him an innovative and controversial new way of tackling law: fingerprinting. Because he has no clients, Wilson busies himself around town with small jobs such as accounting as well as experiments including taking finger prints of every person in the entire town.

In this first chapter, there are two significant occurrences to note. The first is Wilson's first interaction with the people of Dawson's Landing. On his first day in town, Wilson makes a clever, sarcastic joke about it: " 'I wish I owned half of that dog ... because I would kill my half' " (Twain 25). Of course his remark goes right over the heads of the people of Dawson's landing and from that day on he is deemed a 'Pudd'nhead'. The people who hear him overanalyze his comment, thinking he must simply be mistaken. Eventually, they come to the conclusion that he must be an idiot, and the nickname 'Pudd'nhead Wilson' comes to follow him for the twenty long years he spends there.

A second item of interest is the birth of two boys, one Thomas à Becket Driscoll, and the other, Valet de Chambre. Tom was born to Mrs. Driscoll, wife of Percy Driscoll, who is brother to Judge Driscoll. Chambers was born to Roxana, the slave of the Driscoll family. The important thing to remember is that these two boys were born of two different mothers on the same exact day, and that they were nearly impossible to tell apart. Mrs. Driscoll passed away a few days after giving birth, so Roxy was left with the responsibility of caring for both boys.

This chapter sets the stage for events to come, as well as building the scene that Roxy, though white by appearance, is treated as a black woman for her bloodline. Also, we are to realize that the people of the town are simple and narrow minded. Both Wilson with his New York education, and even Roxy, with no education, but a cunning wit, are brighter than the other people of the town.

Chapter 3: The Switch

This chapter builds Roxy's own character and wit for the reader. She is terribly worried that her baby Chambers will be sold down the river to a cruel plantation owner when he gets old enough. This is an important reminder that even though Roxy is an important part of the Driscoll family, she and her son are still black, and as such, are an investment. If it becomes a better investment to sell, then she or her boy will be sold. Roxy is unable to sleep at night with fright for her baby, and when she does manage to drift to sleep, finds herself waking with a start and running to his crib to make sure he is still there. Roxy resolves to spare her child the horrors of living as a slave to a cruel plantation owner by killing her baby and then killing herself: " 'Mammy's got to kill you -- how kin I do it! But yo' mammy ain't gwine to desert you -- no, no; dah, don't cry -- she gwine wid you, she gwine to kill herself too. Come along, honey, come along wid mammy, we gwine to jump in de river, den de troubles o' dis worl' is all over -- dey don't sell po' niggers down de river over yonder' " (Twain 34).

We find Roxy to be deceptively meditative and intelligent, compared to the white people of the town. In spite of the fact that, to all of them, she is mere property, she cares for her child enough to fret over its fate, and is even willing to sacrifice him and herself to spare him. During her deliberations on how to do it, she concerns herself with the impressions she and her boy will make on the angels at the gates of heaven arriving in such humble slave clothes, and decides to wear her nicest clothes instead. All in all, she's a very well thought out person.

Upon dressing Chambers in one of Tom's nice baby gowns, she is astounded at how similar the boys look, and begins to concoct a plan to get around the prospect of her boy being sold into slavery. Craftily, she takes advantage of Percy being unfamiliar with his baby (" 'When I 'uz a-washin' 'em in de tub, yistiddy, his own pappy asked me which of 'em was his'n' " [Twain 35]), and the similarity of the two babies, and switches them. She justifies this with herself, saying that white queens have done it, and they're the top bunch. When Percy first encounters the children since the switch, she makes sure they're both laughing so as to disguise the details of their faces and make them nearly indistinguishable, another crafty move on her part. At the end of the chapter, she seals the children's fate, and her own security, by taking the boys to Wilson and having them reprinted. If he doesn't figure it out, she surmises, no one will. And she is right.

It is ironic that the children's racial roles are switched because of the tension it presents with racism. The black boy is now living a white boy's life, and visa versa. Its an interesting flavor because it challenges the idea that black people should be slaves because they are less than human, while white people should be in control because they are superior.

Chapter 4: True Colors

The two boys having grown up in opposite classes gives undeniable proof against the people of the town justifying racism. Tom has grown into a spiteful, mean little boy, who picks on Chambers even though Chambers is bigger: "Tom was a sickly child and Chambers wasn't. Tom was 'fractious,' as Roxy called it, and overbearing; Chambers was meek and docile" (Twain 41). Tom loves to pick fights with Chambers, but Percy beats Chambers if he fights back, so he learns to check himself. Chambers is forced to allow Tom to get away with it because Tom is his master's son. Tom is even cruel toward Roxy as well, leaving her disappointed, but also proud that her black son is in a position of power: "It had been many a day now since she had ventured a caress or a fondling epithet in his quarter. Such things, from a "nigger," were repulsive to him, and she had been warned to keep her distance and remember who she was. She saw her darling gradually cease from being her son, she saw that detail perish utterly, all that was left was master -- master, pure and simple, and it was not a gentle mastership, either" (Twain 44). Tom is crude, immature, mean, and poorly educated. In the end, it seems his money and white status have corrupted him, whereas Chambers has turned out reserved and, perhaps better labeled, broken.

This really shows just how unfair the racial stratification truly was. Tom has become a monster due to his status and opportunity. Blacks were treated lower under the false claim that they were in fact lower; however, we see here that "Tom," a black child in a white home, turns out sickly, fussy, and generally just a brat. "Chambers," a white child in a black society, ends up healthy, mild and obedient. At one point, Chambers even saves Tom's life, but when Tom is made fun of for it by his peers, he nearly kills Chambers with a knife.

Toward the end of this short chapter, Percy Driscoll sets Roxy free before passing away. Afraid that Tom will sell Chambers down the river, Judge Driscoll secretly buys Chambers from Percy before he dies. In this chapter we can see the tension brewing between the brash, cruel Tom and all those around him. It seems only a matter of time before the roles of the two are switched back to their rightful order and Tom must atone for his misconduct.

Chapter 16: The Transaction

Several years have passed, and the boys are now young adults. Tom has had the chance to go to Yale for college, but squandered his opportunity by committing minimal effort and eventually failing out, showing his lack of appreciation for the good fortune in his life. He continues to show his lack of sensibility or responsibility by getting himself into a considerable amount of debt through gambling. Not wanting to see her son unhappy or in trouble, Roxy decides to come to his rescue. She reveals to him in secret that she is his real mother. Of course, Tom is absolutely horror-struck by this revelation. If anyone were to discover the tiny fraction of black blood in his heritage, it would be enough to take away the luxurious, lazy lifestyle that he has become accustomed to. Suddenly, Tom is frantically apologetic to Roxy for the cruelty he exposed her to when he was younger. Her only response is to instruct him to stop calling her by her first name, and to start calling her Mammy.

Roxy informs Tom that she wishes to help him. He owes three hundred dollars to his creditors for his gambling debts, and she is confident that she is worth at least six hundred dollars. Although some slaves never see freedom, and Roxy is extremely lucky that Master Percy was kind enough to set her free before he died, she is willing to sacrifice her freedom in order to help her son: " 'Ain't you my chile? En does you know anything dat a mother won't do for her chile? Dey ain't nothin' a white mother won't do for her chile. Who made 'em so? De Lord done it. En who made de niggers? De Lord made 'em. In de inside, all mothers is de same' " (Twain 123). She tells Tom to sell her to one of the farmers up north, use half of the money to pay back his debt, then save the remaining money and his monthly pension and buy her back in a year. Tom agrees, but he goes behind her back and sells her down the river to one of the cruel plantation owners. Tom is clearly interested only in his own benefit, and has no regard for the well-being of others, even his own mother, who has given up so much just to help him. The chapter ends with a heartbroken Roxy sailing away to her new home in Arkansas.

Chapters 18, 19 & 20: CSI: Missouri

By this point, Roxy has escaped from the cruel plantation owner and returned to Dawson's Landing disguised as a man. When Tom returns home, to his horror, he finds his mother there. He attempts to apologize profusely and make up petty excuses for himself but Roxy can only look at her son in disgust as he fumbles for words. She is furious with him (and who can blame her?): " 'Sell a pusson down de river -- down de river! -- for de bes'! I wouldn't treat a dog so!' " (Twain 129). She orders him to go to Judge Driscoll immediately and ask him for enough money to buy back her freedom. Tom asks Roxy how in the world she expects him to convince the judge to give him 300 dollars, and she responds in a way that makes Tom even more uncomfortable. She tells him to go to his uncle and tell him the truth about how she offered him to sell her to the north to make money, but that he sold her to the south instead so he could just take the money for himself. Tom is, of course, very reluctant, fearful only for himself and the chance that he will be removed from the will, but in the end, after she threatens to expose his true race, the two of them agree.

In this chapter, we see that Roxy is a much smarter and stronger than her feeble, selfish son. She intimidates him into going to the judge for the money almost purely on fury. She scolds him as her son in spite of the fact that he is an upper class white man, and she is merely a black woman. In addition, Roxy tells Tom that she has a knife that she is not afraid to use in order to protect herself from her former master, should he find her, or even against Tom himself should he try anything funny. This chapter also strengthens our perceptions of Tom. In the light of being faced with the consequences of his actions toward his mother, he continues to think only of himself. When Roxy tells him he needs to set matters right, all he can think of is the risk of the judge cutting him out of the will. Instead of asking his uncle for the money, Tom disguises himself as a woman and breaks into his uncle's house at night to steal the money. Tom's plan for petty theft goes awry, however, and he leaves the house that night a murderer.

The whole town is in an uproar, with the murder of Judge Driscoll and the looming idea that the murderer lurks among them. The twins, Angelo and Luigi, are suspects due to their knife having been found at the crime scene, but witnesses saw a woman leaving the house that night. Pudd'nhead Wilson compares the fingerprints found on the knife to every set of female fingerprints he has in his collection, but none of them match.

Confident that he has gotten away with murder, Tom pays a visit to Pudd'nhead Wilson. While openly mocking Pudd'nhead's fingerprint collection (" 'Hello, we've gone back to the amusements of our days of neglect and obscurity for consolation, have we?' " [Twain 151]), Tom picks up one of the slides, containing his mother's fingerprints, and examines it briefly. Without realizing it, he has contaminated the glass slide with his own fingerprint. After Tom leaves, Pudd'nhead looks at the slide, and something dawns on him. He isn't able to figure it out right away, but after mulling it over, Pudd'nhead figures out not only that it is Tom whose fingerprints are on the knife (and he scorns himself for not considering the possibility that the culprit was not a woman, but a man in women's clothing), but also that Tom and Chambers were switched when they were infants. Once again, Pudd'nhead proves that he is far more intelligent than the foolish residents of Dawson's Landing.

Chapter 22: Conclusion

The last chapter of the book wraps up with the aftermath of the trial in which Tom has been convicted of the murder of his uncle, Judge Driscoll, and Roxy’s switch of the two babies has been revealed to the townspeople of Dawson’s Landing. The townspeople lament their misjudgment of Pudd’nhead Wilson for all of those years, and even begin to realize that they were the ones who were the fools all along, not him. Surprisingly sympathetic Chambers (whose real name is Tom) continues to pay Roxy, who is wracked with guilt and disappointment over the recent turn of events, her monthly stipend that the original Tom promised to pay her, while he tries to sort out his confusions about his true race and identity. He is a white man raised as a black man, and therefore he no longer fits in either of those niches: society won't allow him to continue to live with his black friends, but he cannot bring himself to live amongst the white folks as their equal... "The poor fellow could not endure the terrors of the white man's parlor ... yet he could nevermore enter into the solacing refuge of the 'nigger gallery' -- that was closed to him for good and all" (Twain 166).

Ironically, Tom -- now known as Chambers -- is pardoned of his crime. It is rationalized that if he were a free white man, there would be no question that he would be punished. As it stands, however, they figure that if he hadn't been switched with the real Tom when they were babies, then the crime would never have happened. But to put a perfectly good black man in jail when he could be sold and put to work in the fields... now that was a crime! Tom is no longer a spoiled rich brat, but an object to be bought and sold. Not only is he sold into slavery, but he is sold down the river: the one fate that his poor mother was trying to save him from in the first place, and the same fate that he tried to condemn her to, as well.