Pudd’nhead Wilson & Those Extraordinary Sins

- Simon & Garfunkel, The Boxer, 1970

Pudd’nhead Wilson & Those Extraordinary Sins

Interpreting Mark Twain’s work within our distinctly American cultural heritage has absorbed the careers of countless literary scholars. How a complete neophyte can address such issues with any hope of coherence seems beyond the realm of possibility. But, as Twain came to understand, it may be best to simply let the thoughts go where they will, trusting both the conscious and unconscious, to see where one may end up.

In an effort to limit the unencumbered rambling, I am going to focus on Twain’s response to the racial issues at the heart of his American historical context, primarily through an interpretation of the novel (if it may be characterized as such) Pudd’nhead Wilson with reference to other works by Twain we have discussed in this course and multiple critical essays which have been pored over, albeit with less than completely gratifying results.

Twain is controversial primarily due to the pro

Ultimately, the mirror Twain holds up to society is both warped and clouded by his own internal struggles with the American in which he was raised. As a new student to the study of Twain it seems obvious that his art is extremely relevant and enlightening for those who pursue him well beyond the surface level of his writing. But one can also see how such literature can be engaged in ways that present justifications for racial stereotyping. The facade of Twain’s work contains enough minstrelsy and “coonology” to make people uncomfortable on the one hand, but in a more sinister sense it may provide comfort for those who derive a chuckle when they should be crying at the conditions endured by those who suffer the most in our American culture.

Twain himself appears to be as unsure of his own authorial voice by the end of Pudd’nhead Wilson. “Instead of a “true self” and clear standards of verification, what Twain discovered in his own fiction was the constructed and artificial character of essential social measures of identity—measures that, as the history of race relations demonstrates, we nevertheless totally depend upon. For without such constructs, or when they are momentarily inverted, the conclusion of Puddn’head Wilson suggests, the individual may find himself permanently displaced, nowhere socially recognizable.” (Gillman, p. 95)

As described by John C. Gerber in “Pudd’nhead Wilson as Fabulation,” Mark Twain was not really a novelist – he was more of a “new journalist,” who spun yarns that reflected American life as well or better than any “realistic” novel or overt political propaganda. Early in his career he exhibited the humor that allowed for social commentary and criticism without attacking his subjects head on. By keeping his readers off balance and unsure of his conclusions he was able to address taboo issues, and force a dialogue that might not have been possible without the ability to escape with a slight titter - an ability to laugh when tears might have been more appropriate.

Like so Many of Twain’s protagonists, both black and white, including Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Jim, Pap, The Boss, Pudd’nhead, Tom Driscoll, Chambers and Roxy, Sam Clemens was infected with a form of racism that has been with man since the beginning of time, or since the fall of man in biblical terms. As Stanley Brodwin states in his essay “Blackness and the Adamic Myth,” there is no escape for any human being since each generation builds on past sins and must continually pay the debts accrued.

Some topics in this essay:
Extraordinary Twins, Puddn’head Wilson, Pudd’nhead Wilson, Driscoll Roxy’s, Mark Twain, True Story”, Hannibal Missouri, Tom Driscoll, Injun Joe, African Americans, puddn’head wilson, pudd’nhead wilson, tom driscoll, wilson extraordinary, mark twain, american culture, biracial society, pudd’nhead wilson extraordinary, social fabric, black race, samuel clemens, wilson extraordinary twins,