Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name: Mark Twain, was an American author born in Florida, Missouri, 1835. He was also a riverboat pilot, journalist, lecturer, entrepreneur and inventor. Twain wrote many famous novels that are still huge influences in American literature. Many of his books are humorous with vast dialects and satirical elements; Pudd’nhead Wilson is one of these. The story is set in a town on the Mississippi during the pre-Civil War era. Its plot is centered around the switched identities of a child born free and a child born a slave and later develops into a murder mystery. After the servant of a rich white family named Roxy successfully switches her baby, Valet de Chambre, with her master’s, Thomas Driscoll,
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They found the knife and the sheath. Wilson noticed that there were fingerprints on the knife handle. That pleased him, for the twins had required the earliest comers to make a scrutiny of their hands and clothes, and neither these people nor Wilson himself had found any bloodstains upon them. (Twain 143)
Then, he discredits the twins for the murder by comparing their fingerprints to those on the knife and finding that they do not match. Later, Tom leaves a fingerprint on a sheet of glass and Wilson recognizes it with a mere glance, “All the blood sunk suddenly out of his face; his hand quaked, and he gazed at the polished surface before him with the glassy stare of a corpse” (Twain 152). He then compares Tom’s fingerprint records and finds that Tom and Chambers were switched at around seven months old. He uses all of this information to prove the twins innocent and Tom guilty and amazes the whole town, proving himself to maybe not be such a pudd’nhead after all. Throughout Pudd’nhead Wilson, Wilson makes some foolish blunders, but they are blunders that many people make in day to day life and the act of him solving the murder of Judge Driscoll redeems him, as well as his skill in reading and identifying palms and fingerprints. He uses these skills to find a murderer that no one, not even him had suspected, proving him to be intelligent and not a
They found the knife and the sheath. Wilson noticed that there were fingerprints on the knife handle. That pleased him, for the twins had required the earliest comers to make a scrutiny of their hands and clothes, and neither these people nor Wilson himself had found any bloodstains upon them. (Twain 143)
Then, he discredits the twins for the murder by comparing their fingerprints to those on the knife and finding that they do not match. Later, Tom leaves a fingerprint on a sheet of glass and Wilson recognizes it with a mere glance, “All the blood sunk suddenly out of his face; his hand quaked, and he gazed at the polished surface before him with the glassy stare of a corpse” (Twain 152). He then compares Tom’s fingerprint records and finds that Tom and Chambers were switched at around seven months old. He uses all of this information to prove the twins innocent and Tom guilty and amazes the whole town, proving himself to maybe not be such a pudd’nhead after all. Throughout Pudd’nhead Wilson, Wilson makes some foolish blunders, but they are blunders that many people make in day to day life and the act of him solving the murder of Judge Driscoll redeems him, as well as his skill in reading and identifying palms and fingerprints. He uses these skills to find a murderer that no one, not even him had suspected, proving him to be intelligent and not a