Pudd'n Head Wilson

A detailed Summary of Pudd'n Head Wilson

Messages from Nature in Pudd'nhead Wilson

Though scholars have primarily focused study of Pudd'nhead Wilson on the novel's messages of race and identity, Mark Twain wrote into it an examination of scientific values versus natural values. Much of the book concerns itself with the title character's methods of detection, and in the character of Pudd'nhead Wilson the reader finds a strong critique of scientific positivism. In the employment of natural scenery for certain human action, man's misuse of nature is criticized. Likewise, the conclusion of the novel also focuses on social manipulation of natural processes, with a pessimistic conclusion. Pudd'nhead Wilson rejects the interference of social construction and scientific interpretation in man's experience with nature.

David "Pudd'nhead" Wilson is the symbol of science in all its shortcomings and excesses. The narrator's attitude toward Wilson is not truculent, but it does highlight the aspects of this protanganist that are highly unflattering. The reader knows Wilson to possess "Scotch patience and pluck" (27), and he is able to solve the murder of York Driscoll. Yet, his scientific experiments are often of dubious value and his detective skill is impaire

Porter, Carolyn. "Roxana's Plot." Mark Twain: A Collection of Critical Essays. Eric J. Sundquist, ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1994.

In presenting such an end for both men, Twain expands upon his pronounced support for nature by warning of socially constructed "nature." The class system of Dawson's Landing, and slavery in general, is nothing more than an attempt by powerful men to thwart the freedom people should be born into. That this system endures, even after the events of Pudd'nhead Wilson, displays at least a tacit belief in social determinism on the narrator's part. This outlook is deeply pessimistic, especially after other portions of the story exalt the power of natural forces. If social forces can successfully overpower natural forces, no person can receive the messages from beyond his intellect -- messages that reveal truths higher than man can show himself. The warning offered here is that a social institution that runs counter to the original free state of man, like slavery, is nearly impossible to end. Once it is initiated, such an institution will subvert all human nature to its own ends, until lives are socially determined by the system's requirements rather than by the natural endowments and instincts of each person.

In contrast to Pudd'nhead Wilson, the slave Roxana opens herself to nature's message in one instance, and is able to identify her fate. When her son, the false heir, sells her back into slavery to pay his debts, he imagines "that she 'would not know'" (125) she was on a boat headed to the dreaded South. Yet, the natural world tells her where she is going. The "roar of a bigger and nearer break than usual" (125-6) catches her attention. Roxana's "practiced eye fell upon that telltale rush of water" (126), and she knows that the boat is travelling south. Nature offers her the fingerprint of the break and its pattern as a clue of her son's moral character, just as it gives Wilson the actual fingerprints to do

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Approximate Word count = 1326
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English