The Identity Search

                In my blog post for this week, I will talk about Twain’s questioning of one’s self and identity. He is constantly makes people think who or what their own identity is. Is it tied to your race? Your background? Your upbringing? Throughout Mark Twain’s novel, The Tragedy of Puddn’head Wilson he is continuously switching up the roles of individuals in the novel by using Tom and Chambers especially. The book is set pre-Civil War when slavery was a booming economy in the United States. A slave named Roxy, who cared for the children around the plantation, had a child that looked identical to the slave owner’s child. Roxy felt like in order to give her child a better life; she would switch the children in the crib. This meant a slave owner would become a slave and a slave would become a slave owner. The identity crises that follow in these two children all stem from Roxy’s decision. Twain uses these two characters to explore where one’s identity comes from, whether that is nature or nurture. Each character supports a different side of the argument. Tom supports the side that nurture is stronger than nature while Chambers represents the opposite.

                Tom (originally born Chambers but I will call Tom throughout this blog) plays his whole life in the role of the slave owner. Everything that he knows or does is based off of how he was brought up as a white slave owner. This brings up the debate as to whether his spoiled “white” upbringing is the determinant actions or is the black blood in him that makes him act this way. Twain never seems to actually answer this question but only poses it to the reader in an attempt for them to think about the issue of identity in a new way. When it comes to Tom, nurture triumphing over nature is apparent in the way he treats his own birth mother, Roxy. After Roxy is set free from slavery, she starts working on a steamboat as a chambermaid. The bank she was saving all her money fell apart and she started to reminisce about her son. Roxy was able to “put the vile side of him out of her mind, and dwelt only on recollections of his occasional acts of kindness to her” (Twain, 33). This quote just shows that how Tom treated Roxy but was this because of his upbringing or some biological trait?

                Twain continues fueling this dilemma in the character of Tom. He does the exact opposite of Tom. He takes a legally “white” child and puts him a “black” environment. By doing this he tests whether or not Chambers’ white background will trump the “black” upbringing. Throughout the story, Chambers is a kind and caring person even saving Tom from drowning in the very beginning of the story. One would assume that someone brought up a slave wouldn’t take the opportunity to save their abusive white master but he does anyway. Now why is this? Is this attributed to something biological? Why would Chambers want to save someone who treats him like Tom does? Not only this but Chambers treats his mother or who he thinks is his mother with the utmost respect and adoration.

                In typical Twain fashion I feel he leaves us with more questions than he answers. Is Twain saying that whites are innately more inclined to be good people as opposed to blacks? Based off of Twain’s previous works, I don’t believe he would be in support of this because in reinforces the institution of slavery which he is adamantly opposed to. What I believe Twain is saying in reality is that no matter how you’ve been brought up or what blood you have running through your veins, the individual determines their own identity. One shouldn’t something as horrible as slavery define you there for why Chambers is still a loving son. In addition to that, don’t let your surroundings dictate your actions like Tom fell victim to and became a product of his surroundings.  

Works Cited

Twain, Mark, and Malcolm Bradbury. Pudd'nhead Wilson ; and Those Extraordinary Twins. London: Penguin, 1986. Print.