Tragedy of Pudd'Nhead Wilson – a Puzzling Tale with a Puzzling Title

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The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson – A puzzling tale with a puzzling title An appropriate novel for this seminar? A tragedy? Mark Twain’s tale Pudd’nhead Wilson, first published as The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, is a puzzling story that gives rise to many questions: Why did Twain call the story The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, when the story ends happily for him and he is a minor character? Which literary genre does the novel belong to? Is it really a tragedy, as Twain calls it, or rather a comedy? Is it an American success story, a farce or a detective story? Are Roxy and Tom to blame for their actions? Or is it the institution of slavery that triggers their deeds? Obviously, Pudd’nhead Wilson differs in many ways (style, tone, structure, themes) from the other texts we have studied so far within this seminar. It is because of that I was wondering: Why are we dealing with this novel in our tragedy module – is it really a tragedy? According to Twain he ‘had a sufficiently hard time with that tale, because it changed itself from a farce to a tragedy […] [so he] pulled out the farce and left the tragedy’. But did he really? Taking the character of Wilson into consideration it is questionable if Twain ‘pulled out the farce and left the tragedy’ (pp. 149-152). Obviously, typical Aristotelian tragic elements such as the fall of a noble man from greatness, a hero with a tragic flaw, a story ending in death, as well as the rise of pity and fear in the audience are not apparent when looking at Wilson. As a young man he comes to the west ‘to seek his fortune’ (p. 8). Due to a ‘deadly remark [he] had ruined his chance’ (p. 10) in the town, and since then carried the nickname ‘pudd’nhead’ (p. 9). But after two decades of being ‘lonesome and neglected’ (p. 40) and earning ‘a poor living’ (p. 61), it is Wilson who turns himself from an outsider into a popular hero.
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