Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- Why does Twain write what some might call an anti-slavery novel decades after slavery was abolished?
- How would you describe the role of humor in this novel? Is the humor out of place in a story that deals heavily with the topic of slavery? Or does it enrich our understanding of slavery's complexities?
- The appearance of Italian twins, Luigi and Angelo, kind of comes out of nowhere and makes for a weird interruption of the plot that's underway. What do these two add to the story?
- What do we learn from the experiences of characters like Roxy and Tom who are "black" according to law but so light-skinned that they could pass for white (and in Tom's case, do end up passing for white)?
- Why does the narrator downplay the identity of Tom's biological father?
- This novel is called Pudd'nhead Wilson and there's little doubt that the titular character is the hero of the book, at least in the classic literary sense. So why does it seem like Tom and Roxy are the central characters?
- Are there significant differences in the ways black, white, and mixed race characters are portrayed in the novel?
- All of Roxy's lines are in dialect, or the phonetic rendering of her speech. How does Roxy's use of language compare to that of other characters and/or the narrator? How does this depiction of her speech affect how we readers relate to her?
- Tom is a bad, bad boy. Are we supposed to consider him an aberration of humanity or a representative of it?