Pudd'nhead Wilson: Literary Characters in Racial Purgatory

Central to the arguments found in both W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk and Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson, is the notion that the African American individual senses a “double consciousness,” a phrase coined by Du Bois to describe the lag, or discrepancy felt by the black man between how he perceives himself and how he is perceived by society at large. Although the authors take very different approaches in illustrating the concept, both works clearly revolve around the sensitive topic.

Du Bois provides a literal definition, or case scenario, for what he termed the “double consciousness”, in his semi-autobiographical and largely non-fiction piece:

[T]he Negro…, is born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of the others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a wolrd that looks on in amused contempt and pity. (1750)

For Du Bois, this warped self-perception is strictly the product of the fact that black people post-Emancipation have been allowed only a limited version of freedom. If members of both races are free, but one enjoys a greater range of liberties than the other, to the knowledge of both parties, it is unavoidable that the two begin to view themselves in relative terms—such as superior and inferior. The black people, then, on one level conscious of themselves as equals to their white counterparts, and on the other forced to feel, act and think inferiorly, are clearly living this lag of identity. Thus Du Bois accounts for the “veiled” self-perception as experienced by the African American individual in America, emphatically circa 1880s-1950s.

Twain, meanwhile, makes use of the expressive liberties of writing a novel, and creates much livelier and more imaginative instances which demonstrate the existence of such a discrepancy as felt by African American persons. In the days that followed Tom’s facilitated realization of his born identity, the whole of his conduct echoed Du Bois’s descriptions of a “double conscious” person:

It was the ‘nigger’ in him asserting its humility, and he blushed and was abashed. And the ‘nigger’ in him was surprised when the white friend put out his hand for a shake with him. He found the ‘nigger’ in him involuntarily giving the road, on the sidewalk, to the white rowdy and loafer. [….] the ‘nigger’ in him was ashamed to sit at the white folks’ table, and feared discovery all the time… (53)

Throughout the novel, the reader understands that the other reason why Roxy’s baby-switching scheme worked was because the children were virtually identical in appearance. Keeping that fact in mind, Tom’s fear of discovery is unwarranted and indicative of a two-fold perceived self: one to which the white people did not object to, and on to which he imagined they would.

Apart from the narrative itself, it is especially through the character of Pudd’nhead and his rationalist, scientific approach overall, that the fictive quality of attributing “race” to individuals is high-lighted. Even characters like Tom, however, have moments in which he recognize race as merely a social myth. Just after Roxy revealed his true identity to him, Tom is in his room alone and he ponders out loud:

Why were niggers and whites made? What crime did the uncreated first nigger commit that the curse of birth was decreed for him? And why is this awful difference made between white and black?

Here, the change in his perception of the relative concepts of race is evident in his language. Trained by society, at first he uses a derogatory racial term to refer to blacks, and as his thought trailed off, he wondered why there was ever a distinction between “white” and “black”. Perhaps his diction became milder as result of shame incurred upon discovery that he is not really “white,” but in fact one of “the other”. Perhaps he realized after living his entire life as a black-white person; his very existence was contrary to the harsh social distinctions. Whatever the reason, it is safe to say that at this point Tom’s self-perception has become veiled with concerns of how he is perceived by others.

Despite the fact that Tom gave no thought to the cruel and blind practice of systematic and institutionalized prejudice prior to the discovery of his own black ancestry, (a fact that Tom notes himself) this is a time of heavy self-reflection for him, and it is interesting to see that he should question the social conventions that he so exploited. Nonetheless, these are the very questions that point to the practice of separate white and black experiences that lend readily to the moral double-standards of a nation. This collective experience of a people, at the mercy of a nation that remains morally ambiguous on issues dear to the hearts and minds of Americans, is symbolized by Du Bois’s term.

Other characters have similar moments as Tom. Roxy, the mother of the real Chambers and the culprit behind the switching of the infants, for example, expresses herself sympathetically. Perhaps because she lived the life of a slave which had trained her to never feel entitled, she does not question what made the white man and the black man different. Rather she states with conviction what she feels she would know best:

Ain’t you my chile? En does you know anything dat a mother won’t do for her chile? Dey ain’t nothin’ a white mother won’t do for her chile? Who made ‘em so? De Lord done it. En who made de niggers? De Lord made ‘em. In de inside, mothers is all de same. De good Lord made ‘em so. [sic] (97)

Explaining, in this excerpt, why she was willing to be sold back into slavery in order for Tom to repay his debt. It is clear that Roxy felt her statement could not be challenged. There are two things she knows for sure, every mother would give anything for her child, and she would because the Lord had made her that way. She did not further question the discrepancy between white and black, but it might be logical to ask now: what is to say that there is any difference between white and black people, as there are non between their mothers? Again, it becomes self-evident that it is “by a fiction of law and custom” (Twain 8) that racial categories as such are assigned and perceived.

The novel creatively exemplifies Du Bois’s concept, and illustrate, with elaborate plot development and narration, the significance of the concept. The impact such disengagement between elements which combine to form one’s identity is visible in the character of Roxy, Chambers and Tom. Chambers among them remain unawakened to this lag of identity because he grew to psychological maturity not understanding the notion of self. Roxy has only vague and rudimentary notions of what it means to be black and white, gathered from the life she led. Tom’s experiences, because he truly explored master as well as the slave mentality, can be seen as the fulfilled literary representation of the phrase—double consciousness.