Late 19th - Century American Literature.
Mark Twain's novel Pudd'nhead Wilson as a critique of 19th Century hierarchies based on racial segregation.
Mark Twain:.
Mark Twain was born on November 30th of the year 1835 in Florida, Missouri. His first job was as a printer and 1856 as a steamboat officer. After brief service in the Civil War he started writing as a journalist and later as an author. His first popular book was "Innocents Abroad- (1869), followed by "Tom Sawyer- and "Huckleberry Finn- (1876). "The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson- (1894) was one of his last novels. After this novel was published Twain had to experience a series of painful experiences within his family life. For the following years Twain's literature became rather dull and negative. One of his last published works was "What is Man- in 1906. .
Historical Background:.
The novel "Pudd'nhead Wilson- by Mark Twain was .
written in 1893 and published 1894. The time it was published .
in was a very difficult period of American history, namely the .
period of Post-Reconstruction. The reintegration of slaves, .
African Americans, had failed and certain laws were set up in .
order to maintain the divisions between black and white. Two .
elements from the time of Reconstruction and Post-.
Reconstruction were the so called Jim Crow Laws meant to .
segregate Whites from Blacks and the Order of the Ku Klux .
Klan, which maintained white supremacy through terror. .
However, the setting of the novel was in 1830, a period called "Ante Bellum-, which was the time before Civil War and the time of slavery. Slaves were seen as dependent, inferior to the white race and without any civil rights. In these years Mark Twain was still a boy. I can imagine him remembering the circumstances of this era very well. .
The Novel:.
"Pudd'nhead Wilson-, set in the 1830s, centers on the switching of two babies born on the same day - one the result of miscegenation, the other the legitimate son of a white slave owner.