The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

Chapters 1-3

Reading Check

1. Where is the novel set?

2. What two related hobbies does David Wilson engage in?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does Pudd’nhead Wilson get his nickname?

2. What does Percy Driscoll threaten the people he holds in slavery with if no one confesses to the theft of his money?

3. What is Roxy’s initial plan to deal with Percy Driscoll’s threat?

Paired Resource

“Second Middle Passage”

• This 3-minute video from Black History in Two Minutes (or So) discusses the pain and disruption caused by the relocation of enslaved persons from the upper to the lower South.
• This resource relates to the theme of Racial Identity.
• What point is Mark Twain making about Percy Driscoll by having Driscoll issue this particular threat? Why would he also give Driscoll positive characteristics? Does Roxy seem to also have a mixture of positive and negative characteristics or is she more one-dimensional? What do his characterizations of Driscoll and Roxy suggest about racial identity? How does Roxy’s choice to switch the babies support this idea?

Chapters 4-6

Reading Check

1. With whom does Tom go to live when Percy Driscoll dies?

2. With whom do Angelo and Luigi lodge when they come to Dawson’s Landing?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does Roxy’s treatment of Tom as he grows up end up backfiring?

2. What is hypocritical about the reaction of Dawson’s Landing to Luigi and Angelo as compared to the reception Tom receives when he returns from Yale?

3. What do Angelo and Luigi claim is their background?

Paired Resource

“The End of Nature Versus Nurture”

• This article from Behavioral Scientist explains how the emerging field of epigenetics reveals that “nature versus nurture” is a false binary.
• This resource relates to the theme of Nature or Nurture.
• What is the current scientific understanding of how genetics and environment interact? Which elements of The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson seem to be intended to ask or answer questions about the role of heredity and the role of environment in shaping a person’s abilities and personality? What does Twain’s approach to this question have in common with modern scientific understandings? In what ways does it differ?

Chapters 7-9

Reading Check

1. What is the name of the group that Pudd’nhead Wilson and Judge Driscoll found in Dawson’s Landing?

2. When Roxy first tries to blackmail Tom, what does he assume that she knows about?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What mystery does the chapter title “The Unknown Nymph” refer to?

2. How does Roxy end up desperate enough to blackmail her own son?

3. What does Tom confess to Roxy that explains the “Nymph” mystery to the reader?

Paired Resource

“The Saga of Freethought and Its Pioneers: Religious Critique and Social Reform”

• This article from the American Humanist Association explores the history of Freethought.
• This resource relates to the theme of Social Identity.
• According to this article, what is Freethought? How does Mark Twain fit into the history of Freethought? How does this background information impact your understanding of Twain’s choice to make Judge Driscoll and David Wilson the only members of the Dawson’s Landing Freethinkers Society? What reasons does the novel’s narrator give for their ability to defy social expectations in this way? Do you see evidence in today’s world that outsiders and elites are offered special exemptions to social codes?

Chapters 10-12

Reading Check

1. What item of Luigi’s does Tom plan to pawn?

2. What does “F.F.V.” stand for in Dawson’s Landing?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is hypocritical about Tom’s response to learning his true identity?

2. How did Luigi come to kill a man?

3. Why does Judge Driscoll tear up his will and disinherit Tom?

Paired Resource

“Honor Culture Is Back. We Eradicated It for a Reason.”

• This opinion piece from The Intercept traces the history of honor culture in the US and its relationship to dueling and other forms of violence.
• This resource relates to the theme of Honor.
• What is “honor culture”? What evidence of the Antebellum South’s honor culture do you see in Twain’s novel?

Thomas Bowie's Diary

• This excerpt from the diary of a young man living in the Antebellum South is a primary source offering insight into the honor culture of the American South.
• This resource relates to the theme of Honor.
• What are Bowie’s primary concerns? How do they relate to honor culture in the Antebellum South? Which characters in The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson seem to have similar beliefs about honor?

Chapters 13-15

Reading Check

1. What does Tom steal from Judge Driscoll?

2. What historical figure does Roxy tell Tom he is descended from?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What does Wilson believe will lead to the dagger thief being caught?

2. Why does Judge Driscoll decide to restore Tom’s inheritance?

3. How does Tom slander Luigi’s character to both Wilson and Judge Driscoll?

Chapters 16-19

Reading Check

1. What office do Luigi and Angelo run for?

2. What does the girl on the cotton plantation get beaten for offering Roxy?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does Tom betray Roxy’s trust when she comes up with a plan to help him in St. Louis?

2. What causes the twins to both lose the election?

3. What is ironic about the identity of the first people who enter Judge Driscoll’s house to help him after he is stabbed?

Chapter 20-Conclusion

Reading Check

1. Who is the only person who comes to court to support Angelo and Luigi?

2. Where does the real Chambers eventually end up?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does Tom’s arrogance lead to Wilson’s realization about the fingerprints?

2. How does Wilson use fingerprints to solve the murder?

3. How does the real Tom Driscoll’s fate point to the arbitrary nature of racial categories and the power of nurture and environment in shaping a person?

Recommended Next Reads

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• In Twain’s classic bildungsroman, Huck and the formerly enslaved Jim travel together down the Mississippi River in search of freedom.
• Shared themes include Racial Identity, Social Identity, Nature or Nurture, and Honor.
• Shared topics include satire, humor, stereotypes, slavery, injustice, Realism, regionalism, and vernacular.
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on SuperSummary

The House Behind the Cedars by Charles W. Chesnutt

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• The House Behind the Cedars on SuperSummary

Oreo by Fran Ross

• Christine Clark is the biracial daughter of a Black mother and a Jewish father who finally decides to track down her absentee father. (Content Warning: Due to content and language, this title is better-suited to more mature readers.)
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