Engl. 368 - Pudd'nhead Wilson

I love Mark Twain. I devoured Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn when I was a kid (never once catching the racism, but understanding perfectly the unjustness) and the Prince and the Pauper, and later A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court and I attempted Innocents Abroad too soon; I should revisit it. Just last year I discovered Eve's Diary, which is hilarious and touching, and may be one of my favorites yet.

Pudd'nhead Wilson is funny, mostly because it is written be Mark Twain who must be funny, either because it is expected of him or because he can't help it. But it is not a comedy - it was the most disturbing story I've read in the class yet. I don't mean disturbing like Saw is disturbing; it doesn't make me want to puke or anything.

I mean that it is disturbing because it didn't allow me to settle down and read it. I couldn't just immerse myself in it and follow along with the tale; I was constantly being disturbed into thinking. Of course, mostly I was wondering, what does he mean by this? When Tom turns out to be so bad as a white man, is Twain saying that he doesn't fit in because of that 'one drop'? I choose to think that it is because he was atrociously spoiled, but I couldn't help wondering. Roxy's speech about Tom's being a coward because of that 'one drop' - illustrating how uneducated she is, or just making Twain's point that the 'one drop' counts? Don't worry, I don't think that Twain would be so straightforward as all that: despite what he says in James Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses, Twain is not one to set something out so easily; if he has a point, he comes at it backwards, with sarcasm, and poking at it slyly. By making you wonder whether he means that Tom is bad because of his black blood, he is making you think about it.