Pudd Nhead Wilson A Tragedy Analysis

Improved Essays
Originally titled The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, the often-overlooked Mark Twain novel is not usually described as a tragedy. Tragedy is defined as “a serious drama typically describing a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force (such as destiny) and having a sorrowful or disastrous conclusion that elicits pity or terror” (Merriam-Webster). There are many instances in the novel that makes the reader consider it to be more of a comedy than a tragedy, but there are a number of scenes that make considerably a tragedy. Twain touches on the topics of race, politics, and gender in the antebellum period. During this time period, all of those topics that were seen as normal are now seen as controversial, and therefore tragic to the …show more content…
They also introduce many significant elements to the plot, for example, Pudd’nhead’s introduction and why he’s such a pudd’nhead. The passage from the beginning of chapter 1 explains how he has become an outcast: a dog is barking but can’t be seen. Wilson states, “I wish I owned half of that dog,” to which somebody replies, “Why?” and Wilson answers, “Because I would kill my half” (Twain 9). The townsfolk take it literally and think he’s dumb from then until the end of the novel. This is a tragedy for Wilson himself because he comes to Dawson’s Landing to find work, but since he is now an outcast, nobody hires him until twenty years later. Dixon’s concept analysis of the novel focuses more on the literary elements of the book, such as foreshadowing, imagery, characters, and so on. When discussing Wilson’s character, it says, “Pudd’nhead is singled out, which makes his life seem lonelier” (Dixon). Wilson does not have a wife or any family in Dawson’s Landing so he is alone to start with, and then he unintentionally alienates himself from his neighbors with a harmless comment, so he is the loneliest character in the novel. Another tragedy can be seen in chapter 3: “[Roxy] undressed Thomas à Becket stripping him of everything, and put the tow-linen shirt on him. She put his coral necklace on her own child’s neck” (Twain 24). Twain probably intended for there to be an …show more content…
Everybody, with the exception of David Wilson, is left worse off than they started: all of Roxy’s efforts have been for nothing, Tom is shunned, Chambers is sold down the river, the twins leave Dawson’s Landing to avoid more embarrassment, and Judge Driscoll is dead. Pudd’nhead Wilson has all the elements of a literary tragedy, from the plot to even the diction used to tell the story. Dawson’s Landing sees misfortune after misfortune in the twenty-one or so years that the novel takes place and everything that happens is a drawback for most of the characters involved. In conclusion, although not many people view this novel as a tragedy, all the adversity seen makes Pudd’nhead Wilson a prime example of a literary

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    We Could Live Like This Forever Analysis

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited

    In the beginning of her memoir, Wall’s writes about her lifestyle in positive light, using words such as “adventure.” and “love.” On page 18 she writes, “We could live like this forever”(18), to describe her excitement towards sleeping under stars without any pillows. Another quote describe her bright outlook on living in the dessert is, “I loved the desert, too. When the sun was in the sky, the sand would be so hot that it would burn your feet if you were the kind of kid who wore shoes, but since we always went barefoot, our soles were as tough and thick as cowhide”(21).…

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Everyone has a little something that makes them unique and different, however some people’s differences are bigger than others. Literature tends to use characters that are obviously odd to help create a message. Abbi Glines uses this technique in the novel Until Friday Night. In this novel, a main character, Maggie Carleton, watches her father murder her mother. After telling the police what happened, she choses to never speak again.…

    • 664 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Mark Twain, the father of American literature, was a prestigious humorist and satirist in late 19th century. His thorough understanding of American society and familiarity with children’s physiology left a deep imprint on the history of American literature. As one of the his most representative works, the Adventure of Huckleberry Finn depicts the experience of Huck, a southern boy, and Jim, a runaway slave, on the Mississippi River and the relationships and conflicts between them. Those conflicts originate from the inherited racial differences between Huck and Jim including their life experience and educational background. Furthermore, the conflicts also significantly contribute to the theme of the novel such as the confrontation between freedom and enslavement, the conflict between social convention and conscience, the hypocrisy of civilized society and the moral progress of a adolescent.…

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Summary Of James Wilson

    • 419 Words
    • 2 Pages

    On an August morning in 1824, James Wilson and his 12-year-old son, John Thomas, arrived at their harvest-field near Reedsville, Pennsylvania with two horses and a sled. They threshed the buckwheat and hauled away the chaff until lunchtime. As they sat side-by-side eating their meal, they were set upon by a party of natives of the Six Nations intent on capturing the father and son. The Wilsons could offer no resistance and their long march began. Their trail was northward, through the Kishacoquillas Valley and across the Seven Mountains until they wearily reached the Seneca village near the present site of Buffalo, NY, one hundred seventy miles from home.…

    • 419 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Willie’s illness and revival are surrounded by mythical and seemingly magical events which impact Dunny’s beliefs and others’ perception of him. Some of these events include Mrs.Dempster prayer over Willie’s “dead body”’ seemingly restoring his life to him. This impacts Dunny’s beliefs because he truly believes that her prayer has brought Willie back to life. this further impacts his beliefs as he thinks that this was one of three miraculous acts that has made Dunny think that Mrs.Dempster is a saint. It changes other people’s perception of him because his friends at school think of him as “a credulous ass who thought that a dangerous lunatic could raise the dead”(Davis, 56).…

    • 303 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Several instances in “Pudd’nhead Wilson”, blacks justify their action because the whites have done it, which shows that they believe whites are always right. When the belief that whites are undoubtedly correct prevails, blacks succumb to the superior whites and this grants whites the false belief that they are superior. This is shown when Driscoll is proud of his “magnanimity” of excusing his slaves who have committed theft by not selling them down the river. He compares himself to “a god [who] strecthed forth his mighty hand and closed the gates of hell against [the servants]”. This comparison is ironic, however.…

    • 233 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    By emphasizing how the white characters feel about slavery and using irony to highlight their extreme hypocrisy, Twain wants to anger his readers at the absurd characters so they can push for change portrayed and to bring awareness to how society was reluctant to change. Huck’s alcoholic father, Paps, reacts negatively when a black person is well-educated and free,he says, “.....what is the country a-coming to? It was ‘lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn’t too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where they’d let that nigger vote, I drawed out….I’ll never vote agin as long as I live….I says to the people, why ain’t this nigger put up at auction and sold? ... prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger, and—” (Twain 27).…

    • 304 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson is a book written by Mark Twain. Pudd’nhead Wilson is a northerner who arrives at a small southern town in Missouri to become a lawyer. Upon his arrival he is alienated by the townspeople who do not understand his humor. They give him the nickname “Pudd’nhead” and never give him the chance to do any of their legal work. He then gets into the hobby of fingerprinting.…

    • 779 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Out of the dust is a good book to read because it shows how people can change over time and you even can get through the hardest times. Out of the Dust is about a little girl named Billie Jo. She lives during the great depression where food, money, and water is very scarce. She lives with her mom and dad in a little house with a small farm. Her mom teaches how to the piano and Billie Jo wishes to be famous in playing it.…

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Robert Wilson was born on April 10th in 1898, which was the year that America went to war against the Kingdom of Spain over the explosion of the USS Maine. Ten days after Robert's birth, his father was drafted to fight the Spanish in Cuba. Sadly, he died during the Battle of San Juan Hill. His mother became a widow and got help from her (and her husband's) family members. Robert was the youngest child in the family of five and his mother took extra care of him.…

    • 328 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    1894: segregation laws are being formed, racial tensions are high, and signs of the gap between blacks and whites are everywhere. Against this backdrop, The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson is published as a novel. Almost two decades after slavery has been outlawed and two years before the historic Plessy vs. Ferguson case declares segregation legal, Mark Twain takes a stand against the widely accepted belief of white superiority. At a time when whites were generally viewed as superior to blacks in all regards, Twain advocates racial equality by making all characters susceptible to poor judgement out of love. Furthermore, Twain questions racial categorization by creating characters with mixed racial backgrounds.…

    • 1094 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Tragic turn of life Loss, pain and suffering are stepping stones, slowly building and shaping an individual’s life. These tragic events help transform life, in sometimes drastic ways, that it has the power to mold and often determine one’s destiny itself. In the book, The Other Side of the Bridge, Mary Lawson incorporates this by demonstrating how tragic events continuously play a major role in shaping the destiny of the central characters. Despite the fact that traumatic events scar Ian Christopherson and Arthur Dunn for life, these incidents help them achieve what fate has set in store for them. On the contrary, such events cause a drift in the lives of two brothers, Jake Dunn and Arthur Dunn, defying whatever had been predestined for them.…

    • 1808 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There’s a well-known assumption that authors are an aloof and twisted bunch. Well, Pete Dexter fits this stereotype perfectly. Dexter lived in several places as a child including Illinois, Georgia, and South Dakota (Bodine 1). He experimented with many different careers before becoming a reporter. Dexter suffered brain damage during an incident where he was beaten severely by a drug gang he reported on.…

    • 830 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain comments on many subjects such as race, religion, slavery, education and society as a whole. Throughout the book there are certain very serious instance, which occurred amidst all of the satirizing, but even in those serious instances we can find remnants of satire. The book has a consistent theme of questioning societal morals, as well as Huck’s individual struggle to find his morals. In the reading Satire: Spirit and Art by George A. Test, stated that “the emotions that give rise to satire are…the least admirable of human emotions- anger, malice, hatred, indignation”. While doing this satire “evokes [parallel] emotions… shame, anger, guilt, anxiety (pg. 1).…

    • 1360 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Towards the beginning of the novel the main character, Phillip can best be described as a person with a hollow personality. Then his parents decided to move him and his mother to their homeland in America, but Phillip wants to stay because the island is his home but after yelling at his mother and talking with his father the decision is made. After that point, he can be described as melancholy, this is because there is nothing he can do to stay on the island. Later in the novel, Phillip becomes a very nervous person. The reason he becomes this way is that there is about to be a hurricane and their shelter isn't strong enough to face the storm.…

    • 221 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays