Nature Vs. Nurture In Mark Twain's Pudd Nhead Wilson

Mark Twain expresses and displays the reality of the vigorous debate of nature versus nurture in his novel, Pudd’nhead Wilson, through the development of one of the main characters, Tom. In addition to tossing ideas around of nature versus nurture, Twain also does the same in terms of other societal issues that still exist even in modern society, such as gender roles and racism. Yet, through both Tom’s and Chamber’s upbringings and resulting attitudes shown towards the end of the novel, Twain shows that how a person is raised, their privilege, or lack thereof, and their surrounding environment affects their future personality and attitude towards others. Considering all these factors, it is obvious that a person grows up to be an adult that

mirrors their childhood and upbringing, also furthering these three points. Throughout the novel, Mark Twain also foils the main character Tom, with his slave-duplicate, Chambers. Chambers, throughout the course of the story is portrayed as the anti-Tom, he is raised in the opposite way through a slave upbringing, had no privilege, and was raised in a completely different environment than Tom was, and again, proving that how a person was raised affects their resulting attitude, through Chamber’s humble and unfortunate lifestyle.
Mark Twain, a skilled author in the art of disguising unpopular opinions into a way that the masses can understand, favors the idea that nurture and environment shapes the man, not bloodlines.

Twain supports this idea by arguing that how a person is brought up often affects their entire life, seeing as how the majority of life-changing decisions occur in one’s childhood. Throughout the beginning of the novel, Tom’s lavish upbringing was one of luxury, which is telling later on in his resulting attitudes. Considering his socioeconomic status, and his family’s accumulated wealth, his childhood was one of stereotypical, wealthy, aristocratic, 1830’s, white child. One example of this is seen on page 17 of the novel, “Tom got all the petting, Chambers got none. Tom got all the delicacies, Chambers got mush and milk, and clabber without sugar.” Here Twain displays how extravagant Tom’s childhood was in comparison to Chambers. By including this set of details in the storyline, it shows that a person’s race affects their daily lives and routines, eventually shaping their future. Tom was fed delicacies and prepared meals, while Chambers received only enough food to keep him strong in order so that he can eventually work the fields on the plantation, since he was a slave. This also displays how Chambers was considered and treated as subhuman and property, given his race and extremely low social status in the early to mid 1800’s. Another example of how an upbringing shapes a person’s

resulting attitude is shown when Chambers is given his rightful title as a white, free man, and the actual heir to the Driscoll house, on page 122, “His gait, his attitudes, his gestures… all were vulgar and uncouth… money and fine clothes could not mend these defects.” This displays that despite his Caucasian race through blood, and wealthy family and bloodline, his upbringing as a slave overruled these inherited traits, and since he was raised a slave, he remained a slave in mindset for the rest of his life. Through both Tom and Chambers, although both are polar opposites of one another, Twain manages to display how a person’s upbringing takes precedence to what runs in one’s bloodlines.
Given Tom’s unjust privilege, and his supposed “white” skin color, he was given more rights than a slave that was even 1/16th African-American, considering this is in the pre-Civil war era.

This is obviously displayed through both Tom’s privilege and Chamber’s absence of it. Seen on page 16, “Tom was a bad boy from the very beginning of his usurpation,” this shows that ever since he was born and put into a position of power over Chambers and the other slaves, he took advantage of it, and did whatever he wanted, just because he could. Chambers lack of privilege is shown vividly through page 18 in the novel, “[Percy Driscoll] told Chambers that under no provocation whatever was he privileged to lift his hand against his little master.” This explicitly displays Tom’s power over Chambers and how he is considered a “little master,” and how Chambers was not allowed to even lift a hand against Tom, given his subhuman reputation due to his ethnicity and race. While privilege in modern society is still defined by social and economic status, race and ethnicity nowadays doesn’t play as big of a role as it did in determining privilege in the early to

mid-1800s.
Not only does the way a person was raised determine their future attitudes and personality, but where they were raised also makes a very significant difference as well. Tom was raised by a wealthy, unemotional uncle, surrounded by preppy, white people of high socioeconomic status, and virtually no real motherly figure to admire, initiating his sociopathic attitude and personality, which is overtly seen towards the ending of the novel. Chambers, however, was raised by other slaves, and surrounded by them, and with a loving, motherly figure in which he could look up to, which eventually leads him to a life of humility and innocence. It states in the beginning of the novel that when Roxy went to visit Chambers in the slave quarters, which is where he was raised, Chambers was still surrounded by slaves, even as he grew older. Also as seen on page 122, when Chambers was freed, “The poor fellow could not endure the terrors of the white man’s parlor, and felt at home and at peace nowhere but in the kitchen,” this displays that given that Chambers was raised in a slave environment as a slave, he remained in that mindset throughout his life and further on, even when he was freed and not considered a slave anymore. Once again, Twain reinforces the idea that “environment shapes the man,” rather than bloodline and heritage.
Mark Twain explicitly displays an accurate and sturdy argument of how nurture shapes a person’s character more than their inherited mindset and bloodline does consistently throughout his novel, Pudd’nhead Wilson, through the development of two of the main characters in the book, Tom and Chambers. While looking exactly alike, and having switched bloodlines, the two characters were raised on polar opposite ends of the socioeconomic status spectrum, and both end up as two completely separate people. Twain accurately describes that how a person is raised, where a person is raised, and their granted privilege or lack thereof, defines their character in the future.