History 260
April 19, 2014
Pudd'nhead Wilson Reflection
This novel has a few different plots that all tie together in the murder trial at the end of
the book. Roxy is a slave that is oneÂsixteenth black, but she can pass for white. She gave birth
to her son, Chambers, on the same day that her owner's wife gave birth to her son, Tom. The
two babies looked very similar and Roxy was the only one who could tell them apart. In an
effort to prevent her son from being sold down the river, she secretly switched the babies. The
only problem with this was that their fingerprints were recorded by Pudd'nhead Wilson, a new
lawyer in Dawson's Landing. "Tom" grows up to bring shame to the Driscoll family. He has a
gambling problem and finds himself in a lot of debt so he starts stealing things from people's
houses to make money. "Tom" ends up stealing a knife from the new Italian twins in town,
Luigi and Angelo, and uses it to kill Judge Driscoll. In the investigation of the crime,
Pudd'nhead Wilson reviews the fingerprints and the true identities of Chambers and Tom are
revealed. After "Tom" is thrown in jail, he is sold down river, the exact opposite of Roxy's
intentions for switching them in the first place.
One of the underlying themes of Pudd'nhead Wilson was the differences among social
classes. For instance, Pudd'nhead Wilson was a very smart man and intended to set up a law
practice in Dawson's Landing; however, he was not able to because he made a remark that many
people did not understand so he made a living working odd jobs. He should have been upper
class but he was not because he was looked at as an outsider. Furthermore,