Identity: noun, the fact of being who or what a person or thing is and the characteristics determining this. The definition of identity is as stated above, but what specific characteristics determine who a person is? People often believe that identity is influenced by one’s physical features and outward appearance. However, throughout Mark Twain’s book The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, identity is found to be more than outward appearance; identity is mainly formed by one’s upbringing and values because that dictates the way one lives. The lives of characters Thomas Driscoll and Valet de Chambre show how important one’s early life and morals are to one’s identity.
Two boys were born on the same day, the first of February. Both have blond, curly hair, blue eyes and white skin. The two boys are not genetically twins, as they have different parents, but they appear nearly identical. Yet one boy is a slave because he is one thirty-secondth African and the other is a future slave owner because he is full white. Though similar in looks, “even the father of the white child was able to tell the children apart—little as he had commerce with them—by their clothes” (15). …show more content…
Tom finds himself in deep debt because of his gambling addiction and is about to be disowned by the Driscolls. Tom’s true mother Roxy offers to sell herself back into slavery to help him after revealing his true identity to him. Roxy only asks that Tom not sell her down the river. In response to this selfless sacrifice, Tom betrays the woman who he owes everything to and sells her down the river to save his own skin. He felt a slight prick to his conscience but “after that he began to get comfortable again, and was presently able to sleep like any other miscreant” (157). Because Tom had become accustomed to always getting his way, he selfishly and cowardly double crosses his own mother and has no regard for loyalty or
Two boys were born on the same day, the first of February. Both have blond, curly hair, blue eyes and white skin. The two boys are not genetically twins, as they have different parents, but they appear nearly identical. Yet one boy is a slave because he is one thirty-secondth African and the other is a future slave owner because he is full white. Though similar in looks, “even the father of the white child was able to tell the children apart—little as he had commerce with them—by their clothes” (15). …show more content…
Tom finds himself in deep debt because of his gambling addiction and is about to be disowned by the Driscolls. Tom’s true mother Roxy offers to sell herself back into slavery to help him after revealing his true identity to him. Roxy only asks that Tom not sell her down the river. In response to this selfless sacrifice, Tom betrays the woman who he owes everything to and sells her down the river to save his own skin. He felt a slight prick to his conscience but “after that he began to get comfortable again, and was presently able to sleep like any other miscreant” (157). Because Tom had become accustomed to always getting his way, he selfishly and cowardly double crosses his own mother and has no regard for loyalty or