The Absurdity of Racial Inequality

Only Mark Twain would come up with such a device.

In Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe uses quadroons and mulattoes, the sons and daughters of whites, to show the absurdity of inequality between the races. In Puddin'head Wilson, Twain ups the ante; rather than using quadroons and mulattoes, Twain uses a woman with only 1/16 African American descent. She looks white, but her dress, mannerisms, and speech betray the fact that she has been raised as a slave. We have two children switched at birth, one 1/32 black, who clearly passes for white, and another, the son of a white slave owner, who is brought up as a slave.

What a clever and creative device Twain creates to show the absurdity of inequality! It is incredible that the law of the time made someone born of such little African American descent a slave. Through Twain's experiment of switching the two children at birth, he proves something to the many who still harbor racist feelings towards blacks.

Through this creative device Twain shows his readers that blacks are not born inferior, and whites are not born superior. A man is developed through nurture more than nature. The son of a southern aristocrat can be raised to be a poor, uneducated, humble man. The son of a slave can be brought up to be arrogant, selfish, and sophisticated.

When the real Tom is restored to his position as heir to the Driscoll inheritance, he finds that he has fallen through the cracks in society. No longer can he be one with the people he knows. And yet, he also does not fit in with white society. He has been brought up as a slave, and that inferiority that has been battered into him does not leave simply through a change in status. The real tragic character in Puddin'head Wilson is "Chambers." In many ways he is not unlike the slave after the Civil War. Those freed by the war found themselves penniless and uneducated. Because of the way they had been raised, many went back to the occupation they knew before the war. They were free, but they were still not accepted by whites.

What Twain does in Puddin'head Wilson is pull back the facade of race and reveal that who we are is not determined by the color of our skin; it is determined by our development.

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