The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What happened in the American South during the era of Reconstruction? What was America’s “Gilded Age”? How might a person committed to human equality react to living through these two eras?

Teaching Suggestion: The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson’s humor takes aim at racial and financial inequality, reflecting Mark Twain’s frustration at the failures of Reconstruction and the excesses of the Gilded Age. Students are more likely to understand his intentions with some historical background knowledge, through review, investigation, or direct instruction. If your students have little knowledge about these aspects of US history, you might offer them the resources below before they write about or discuss this prompt.

• This 8-minute video from CBS Sunday Morning features interviews with several historians on the topic of Reconstruction.
• This 10-minute video from PBS explores income disparity during America’s Gilded Age.

2. What have you already read by Mark Twain? What are some characteristics of Mark Twain’s writing style?

Teaching Suggestion: Because The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson is not generally among the first Twain texts students encounter, this question assumes some familiarity with Twain’s work. If most of your students are unfamiliar with Twain’s work, however, you might omit the first question in this prompt and instead offer them the third of the listed resources as a brief sample of his writing before they attempt to describe his style. If your students are generally familiar with Twain, the first or second listed resources can be used to deepen their understanding. This is a good opportunity to ensure that students are familiar with terms useful in discussions of Twain’s style: colloquialism, vernacular, sarcasm, satire, irony, aphorism, and any relevant devices of repetition or figurative language you suspect they do not yet know.

• This article offers an accessible overview of Twain’s style, focusing particularly on his sense of humor.
• This article, from American Quarterly, is a scholarly analysis of Twain’s style. (Due to length and complexity, this resource is better-suited to more advanced students.)
• This letter, written by Twain to the Secretary of the Treasury, pretends to solicit government bonds and currency as a fuel source.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the novel.

How far would you go to save a person you deeply loved from a terrible fate? Would you break the law? Would you risk your own safety? What do you think is morally acceptable and unacceptable in a situation like this?

Teaching Suggestion: Roxy, one of the main characters in The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, precipitates the novel’s action by swapping her own child for another to save her child from a terrible fate. The novel’s comic tone can obscure the horror of the moral decision that Roxy faces in this moment and that she lives with for the remainder of her life. This prompt is meant to broach the idea of impossible decisions so that students better appreciate the significance of Roxy’s dilemma. This prompt is well-suited to a whole-class discussion, as students may benefit from hearing a wide range of opinions on the issue.