Pudd'nhead Wilson: the Story, Chapters XI to XXI
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Syllabus topic 1.5, "Puddn'head Wilson - Mark Twain"
Pages 182 to 185 of 406
In one line
Tom robs his way through the town, sells his own mother down the river, murders his uncle for the money in a cash box, watches two innocent men be tried for it, and is destroyed in open court by a hobby everybody had laughed at for twenty years.
The chapters
XI, "Pudd'nhead's Startling Discovery". The twins visit Wilson, who reads their palms, and Wilson takes their finger-prints. This is also the chapter of the kicking and the challenge that follows: Luigi kicks Tom at a public meeting, and Judge Driscoll, told of it, is enraged that his nephew took the insult to a court instead of demanding satisfaction.
XII, "The Shame of Judge Driscoll". Chapter XII is the duel. The Judge's code is the code of the First Families of Virginia, and his shame is that his nephew took an insult to a court instead of demanding satisfaction, so he fights Luigi himself.
XIII, "Tom Stares at Ruin". Chapter XIII is Tom's debts and his fear of exposure, with his uncle threatening to disinherit him.
XIV, "Roxana Insists Upon Reform". In chapter XIV Roxy discovers that Tom has been stealing, and forces terms on him: he is to give up gambling and confess to his uncle.
XV, "The Robber Robbed". Chapter XV follows the stolen goods around the town, and Tom's position worsens.
XVI, "Sold Down the River". The centre of the book's moral action. Tom, to raise money, sells his own mother, promising her it will be to a farmer up the river, and she is sold to a planter in the deep South. He knows exactly what he is doing, and Twain refuses to soften it.
XVII, "The Judge Utters Dire Prophecy". In chapter XVII the twins stand in the election and Judge Driscoll speaks against them, prophesying the ruin the next chapters deliver.
XVIII, "Roxana Commands". Chapter XVIII brings Roxy back: she has escaped from the plantation and returned. She confronts Tom and forces him to recover her freedom, which means finding money, which means robbing his uncle.
XIX, "The Prophecy Realized". Chapter XIX is the murder. Tom, disguised as a woman, enters Judge Driscoll's room at night to steal from the cash box, is discovered, and kills the Judge with the twins' Indian knife, which he had earlier stolen from them. He leaves the knife and escapes past the window.
XX, "The Murderer Chuckles". In chapter XX the twins are found in the room with the body and are charged. Wilson, who has never had a case in his life, is engaged for the defence. The prosecution is led by Pembroke Howard, and its case is that the bloody finger-prints on the knife handle were left by the killer, that the knife belonged to the twins, and that the twins were found standing over the body. Tom sits in court enjoying it. The chapter is headed by the calendar entry "Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence is likely to be at fault".
Pudd'nhead Wilson: the Story, Chapters XI to XXI
XXI, "Doom". The trial's second day, and the whole of it belongs to the next chapter of these notes.
The Conclusion, which the answer must reach
Wilson is made. The town that called him Pudd'nhead for twenty years serenades him, and one wit observes that he has resigned from the position and the rest of them are elected to it.
The twins go home. Cleared, but weary of Western adventure, they retire to Europe.
Roxy is broken. Twain's sentence is exact: "the spirit in her eye was quenched, her martial bearing departed with it, and the voice of her laughter ceased in the land."
The real heir cannot use his inheritance. Rich and free at twenty-three, he can neither read nor write, his manners are the manners of a slave, he is miserable in the white man's parlour, and the gallery he used to sit in is closed to him. Twain declines to follow him further, saying it would be a long story, which is the coldest line in the book.
And the ending in law. Tom confesses and is sentenced to imprisonment for life. Then the creditors of the Percy Driscoll estate come forward. Their argument, which the town accepts, is that Tom was lawfully their property and had been for eight years, that they had lost his services all that time through an error in the inventory for which they were not to blame, and that if he had been delivered up in the first place they would have sold him and he could not have murdered anybody. Twain records the town's reasoning without comment.
Everybody granted that if "Tom" were white and free it would be unquestionably right to punish him, it would be no loss to anybody; but to shut up a valuable slave for life, that was quite another matter.
The Governor pardons him at once, and the creditors sell him down the river.
Why the Conclusion is the most important page in the novel
It reverses everything the trial achieved. The trial produced the truth. The Conclusion shows the law setting the truth aside because the truth is inconvenient to a property claim.
It makes the punishment fall on the value, not the wrong. A murderer is released from prison because imprisoning him would waste an asset, and the sentence he actually serves is slavery.
It closes the circle. The book opens with a threat to sell people down the river and ends with a man sold down the river, and the man is the one who sold his own mother there.
Pudd'nhead Wilson: the Story, Chapters XI to XXI
It is the answer to the question "is this a comedy?" The title page says The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson, and the last page earns the word.
What beginners get wrong
They stop at the courtroom. The Conclusion is where the argument is.
They say Tom is executed. He is sentenced to imprisonment for life, pardoned, and sold.
They forget the real heir. His fate, unusable freedom, is Twain's judgment on the whole idea that changing a person's legal status changes their life.
They soften chapter XVI. Tom sells his own mother down the river by a trick, and the book's moral arithmetic depends on the reader holding that against him.
A worked answer
Question. "Was justice done at the end of Pudd'nhead Wilson?"
Paragraph one, what the trial achieved. Two innocent men were cleared, a murderer was identified beyond argument, and a fraud twenty-three years old was uncovered. On any ordinary measure the trial was a success, and it was achieved by a lawyer the town had treated as a fool.
Paragraph two, what the Conclusion did to it. The murderer confessed and was sentenced to imprisonment for life. Then the creditors of the Percy Driscoll estate claimed him as property wrongly omitted from an inventory eight years before, argued that they had already lost his services through no fault of theirs, and pointed out that had he been delivered to them he would have been sold and could not have killed anybody. Twain records that everybody saw reason in this, and that everybody granted that punishing a white and free man would be no loss to anybody, while shutting up a valuable slave for life was quite another matter. The Governor pardoned him and the creditors sold him down the river.
Paragraph three, the answer. So justice was done and then undone, and the thing that undid it was not corruption but property law working normally. The punishment that was finally inflicted attached to the man's status and not to his crime.
Paragraph four, the closing observation. The book opens with a threat to sell four people down the river and ends with a man sold down the river, and the man is the one who had earlier sold his own mother there. Twain leaves the arithmetic to the reader.
Quick revision
XI to XII: finger-prints of the twins taken; the kicking; the Judge fights the duel his nephew refused.
XIII to XV: Tom's debts, his thefts, Roxy's discovery.
XVI: Tom sells Roxy down the river.
XVIII to XIX: Roxy escapes and returns; Tom, disguised as a woman, robs Judge Driscoll and kills him with the twins' Indian knife.
Pudd'nhead Wilson: the Story, Chapters XI to XXI
XX: the twins are charged; Wilson defends them; the prosecution relies on the bloody finger-prints on the knife.
XXI: the proof in court.
Conclusion: Tom confesses and is sentenced to life; the creditors claim him as property left off an inventory; the Governor pardons him and they sell him down the river.
Test yourself
1. Why does Tom murder Judge Driscoll? For money. He needs it to buy his mother out of slavery after she escapes and forces him to act, and he is discovered while robbing his uncle's cash box and kills him with the stolen Indian knife.
2. What does Tom do to Roxy in chapter XVI? He sells his own mother into slavery, telling her it will be to a farmer up the river, and she is sold to a planter in the deep South.
3. What is the creditors' argument in the Conclusion? That Tom was lawfully their property for eight years, that they lost his services through an error in the inventory for which they were not to blame, and that had he been delivered up to them he would have been sold and could not have committed the murder.
4. Why does the Governor pardon a convicted murderer? Because as a slave he is a valuable asset belonging to the creditors, and imprisoning him for life would take that value away from people who had done nothing wrong. Twain reports that everybody saw the reason in this.
5. What happens to the real heir, and why does Twain include it? He is suddenly rich and free at twenty-three, cannot read or write, has the manners of a slave, and is at home nowhere. Twain includes it to show that reversing a legal status does not undo what the status did to a person.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.