Pudd’nhead Wilson is a story centered around the issue of race and what it means to be defined as a specific race. In Raymond Williams’ article Racial, race is defined as “general classification as in ‘the human race’ (1580); a group of human beings in extension and projection from sense.” What I take out of that is that race is a classification or categorization tool we humans use on ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with classifying or categorizing someone, however there are foolish ways of extrapolating characteristics perceived in those classified groups to individuals. The true is same of the converse, characteristics from individuals generalized to groups. This story contains myriad examples of negative black and positive white stereotypes that seem to be backed by nothing more than a stigma rather than pragmatic action.  

Mark Twain does a great job poking holes in the nature side of the nature versus nurture conflict through his character Chambers, a true Wilson and Roxy’s pseudo son. Chambers has no slave blood in him compared to Tom (Roxy’s real son and current Wilson) who is 1/32 black. Chambers grew up a slave a turned, in turn, fit the stereotype of an uneducated, submissive black slave. Tom on the other hand grew up educated and wildly aggressive. Tom screams at Roxy, “A dollar! – give you a dollar! I’ve a notion to strangle you! Is that your errand here? Clear out! And be quick about it! (107)” The nurture argument in the parameters of the zeitgeist would cause Tom to act submissively and would classify him as ineducable, which he clearly wasn’t. When Tom learns of his true origins from Roxy his behavior changes and ‘reverts’ back to his subservient fate. Tom finds that his “habit of a lifetime had in some mysterious way vanished – his arm hung limp, instead of involuntarily extending the hand for a shake. It was the ‘nigger’ in him asserting its humility, and he blushed and was abashed. (118)” I think this is an exceptionally future sighted remark. This demonstrates that one, the stereotypes are wrong or are at least fickle and two, that race is nothing but a mental classification.

This novel also touches on the conflict of playing god and its morality. Roxy switches Tom and Chambers as kids effectively playing god, in an attempt to save her son from being ‘sold down the river’. In the end, her son ends up a pretty lousy human being and still gets sold down the river, while the real Tom took the abuse a life as a slave brings and upon regaining his status had no clue what to do with himself. Additionally, Roxy ended up with an abusive son who she called master almost her entire life. In the end, the two people involved in Roxy’s god playing hoax as well as Roxy herself fared poorly. Pudd’nhead Wilson on the other hand ended up fairly well off. Originally considered the town fool because of a joke too clever, Pudd’head was ostracized as an unusable lawyer and was generally considered the weird guy that experimented and did weird things on the edge of town where he lived. The mad scientist. Instead of trying to play god by changing who he was, Pudd’nhead continued his strange work collecting fingerprints and making the most quotable calendars imaginable. Then when the time was right he used his perceptive thinking skills and the fingerprints to fix his reputation, resulting in him becoming a lawyer like he always wanted. This is an interesting counter to playing god, instead taking the nurture route. The story of these four sheds light on the ability the environment has in shaping individuals.