puddnhead

Character Bios

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Pudd'nhead Wilson

A young lawyer from New York coming to Dawson's Landing, Missouri, to seek his fortune, David Wilson is intellectual and wise beyond his years. But what was intended to be a joke turns out to be a fatal mistake -- his joke about killing half of a dog goes right over the heads of the foolish citizens of Dawson's Landing. They deem him an idiot, and bestow upon him the nickname Pudd'nhead. It is ironic that the easily most intelligent man in the city is thought to be a complete moron. Years later, the nickname continues to stick, although it no longer harbors any ill will.

Pudd'nhead Wilson is known for his quirky interests and project, particularly his fingerprint collection. Fingerprinting is a relatively new science at this point in time. He collects the fingerprints of all the citizens in Dawson's Landing on glass slides, and archives them. Pudd'nhead's fingerprint records will become extremely important later on in the story, when Tom accidentally incriminates himself for the murder of Judge Driscoll. Not only does Pudd'nhead match Tom's fingerprints to the ones at the crime scene, but he is also able to make the connection that he was switched with Chambers when he was a baby. It is lucky for Dawson's Landing that Pudd'nhead had been collecting fingerprints all those years, or else they might never have caught the murderer. It shows that thinking outside the box and not following the herd can be extremely beneficial.

Roxana

Light hair and skin would lead most observers to guess that Roxana is a white woman. And for the most part, she is – it’s that one drop of black blood in her that makes all the difference. Roxy is only one-sixteenth black, but that is enough to condemn her to a life of slavery. She has been raised as a slave, among other black slaves, and her dialect shows it: “ ‘If you b’longed to me, I’d sell you down de river ‘fo’ you git too fur gone. Fust time I runs acrost yo’ marster, I’s gwine to tell him so’ ” (Twain 28). Despite her lack of education, she is a relatively bright and intuitive young woman.

When the story begins, Roxy is owned by Percy Driscoll. She and Master Percy’s wife both deliver baby boys on the same day, the first of February. Sadly, the master’s wife dies in childbirth, and Roxy is instructed to care for both of the infants. The boys both appear identical to everyone who sees them, even Master Percy – Roxy is the only one who can tell them apart. When she realizes that her son might end up being sold down the river, to the cruel and abusive slave owners, Roxy panics. Being sold down the river is a fate worse than death, and so she decides that she will drown both herself and her baby. But before she can commit suicide, an idea dawns on her. She switches the babies’ clothing – Tom becomes Chambers and Chambers becomes Tom, and only she knows the difference. She is willing to live with the possibility of the new Chambers being sold down the river, while her own son, the new Tom, will be living in the lap of luxury; she justifies her deed with a story she heard in church about a white queen who had done the same thing: “ ‘Dey done it – yes, dey done it; en not on’y jis’ common white folks nuther, but de biggest quality dey is in de whole bilin’. Oh, I’s so glad I ‘member ‘bout dat!’ ” (Twain 37). If a white nobility had committed the same crime, then it must not be a crime at all.

Roxy remains devoted to her child. Even though Tom grows up to be selfish and mean, her maternal instinct still compels her to bail him out when he finds himself in debt. She offers to let him sell her back into slavery, even though by this point Percy Driscoll has freed her, so that he can pay off his debts, and then buy her back later. Her blood relation to Tom is extremely important to her, even though she raised Chambers as her own and he turned out to be kind and subdued. Sadly, after Tom is convicted of the murder of Judge Driscoll and his true race is revealed, he is sold down the river (the very thing that Roxy was trying to prevent by switching the babies in the first place), which suggests that all of Roxy’s efforts were for naught.

Tom

Tom Driscoll is Roxy’s son, the technically black boy who was raised as a wealthy farm owner’s white son. Had his mother not switched him with Percy Driscoll’s son when they were just a few months old, he would have grown up with the name Chambers and would have been raised as a slave. But he is spoiled, and treats both Chambers and Roxy (oblivious to the fact that she is his real mother) with great disrespect and abuse – he even physically attacks Chambers at one point: “Tom sprang at him and drove his pocketknife into him two or three times before the boys could snatch him away and give the wounded lad a chance to escape. He was considerably hurt, but not seriously. If the blade had been a little longer, his career would have ended there” (Twain 44). His uncle, Judge Driscoll, buys Chambers when his brother, Tom's supposed father, dies because he suspects that Tom will try to sell Chambers down the river. It is obvious that he considers himself superior to them, which is not an uncommon or surprising sentiment in this time period, given that he is white and they are his slaves.

Tom is given the chance to receive an education at Yale, but he gives minimum effort and performs poorly, showing that he clearly does not appreciate the opportunities that he has been given in life simply for being white. He also manages to get himself into some considerable debt through gambling. At this point, Roxy reveals to him that she is his real mother and that he is actually one-thirty-secondth black. Naturally, he reacts with horror: if anyone were to find this out, he would lose his luxurious lifestyle and be sold into slavery.

His mother offers to help him pay his debts by letting him sell her back into slavery to one of the northern plantation owners (who are reputed to be less cruel than the ones down the river), and then buy back her freedom later. Tom agrees, but he betrays her, and sells her down the river anyway. Tom's betrayal of his mother, despite the fact that she is sacrificing her own freedom for his sake, shows just how selfish he really is.

Tom also ends up betraying his uncle, Judge Driscoll, who cared for him after his father, Percy Driscoll, died. Preferring to steal from his uncle rather than ask him for money, Tom breaks into Judge Driscoll's house at night. The judge hears the intruder in his house, and comes down to see what the commotion is. Tom panics and stabs his uncle with the knife he stole from the twins, Angelo and Luigi. Tom's betrayal is an extreme one, even though Judge Driscoll is technically not a member of his family now that he knows his true heritage. He puts on an act of surprise when he sees the body, fooling everyone, covering his tracks, and his tracks alone.

Ironically, when Tom is convicted of the murder of his uncle and his true race is exposed, he is pardoned of his crime by the governor and sold down the river. Tom instantly goes from being regarded as a wealthy white man to nothing more than an object, a commodity to be traded. He is pardoned from his crime because it would be a waste to let a perfectly good black slave rot in a jail cell when he could be working.

Chambers

While Chambers is not featured prominently as an active character for most of the story, he is still extremely important. (After all, who would have Roxy switched her own son with, had it not been for him?) He serves as a foil to Tom, contrasting the difference in their personalities due to their vastly different upbringings, and illustrates the concept of nature vs. nurture. Chambers is purely white, but he is brought up as a slave. He talks like a slave and acts like a slave, while Tom enjoys the wealth and luxury and selfishness that Chambers rightfully should have been enjoying.

When Tom is convicted of his uncle's murder and Pudd'nhead Wilson reveals that Tom and Chambers were switched, Chambers comes to the realization that he is actually the son of Percy Driscoll. Now considered a white man, he is expected to live like one, treated as an equal by other white men. But Chambers can't bring himself to live in a nice fancy house; something about it just doesn't feel right to him. But he can't go back to live in the slave's quarters where he has spent his whole life, either, because society would not accept a white man living among blacks. Poor Chambers is torn -- as far as society is concerned, he is neither black nor white -- and not even the original author is willing to delve into the complexity of Chambers' situation of coming to terms with his true race.

Chambers also shows what a good person he is in comparison to Tom. Throughout his life, Chambers remains kind to the two people he should rightfully resent. As children, Tom tormented and abused Chambers, even stabbed him with a knife once, all while Chambers kept his mouth shut and his fists at his side, and endured the harassment and brutality without retaliation. One day, when the boys were about fifteen, they and their friends were playing in the river and Tom began to drown. Despite all of the cruelty, Chambers dove into the river and saved Tom's life (and endured verbal abuse for it afterward). And near the end of the book, when the switch is revealed, it would have been all too easy (and maybe even expected) for Chambers to be angry with Roxy for condemning him to slavery for the first twenty years or so of his life, and then causing the racial confusion he has to deal with now that he knows he is white. But instead, Chambers continues to send Roxy part of his father's monthly pension so that she has enough money to live. It is obvious through Chambers and Tom that nurture plays a much larger part than nature when it comes to the dividing line of race.