Would Anyone Care for Some Puddin' on Their Head???
             In Pudd'nhead Wilson, Mark Twain takes the different types of irony- verbal, situational, and dramatic- and uses them as an escape. He tries to explain the life of African- Americans through the satire of Caucasians.
             Set in antebellum Missouri, Twain tells his story through the eyes of Pudd'nhead Wilson. Twain satirizes whites, more specifically the whites of the slave holding south. This is brought out originally in the scene where Wilson receives his name. The serious attitudes of property prevents the white townspeople from understanding the joke Wilson makes about the dog. It is apparent that Twain is pointing out the stupidity of the townspeople rather than that of Wilson. Not only are the townspeople ignorant to the fact of Wilson's intelligence, but they are also ignorant to the fact of Roxy's ingenious.
             Twain also shows Roxy as a black that is in a small way superior to the townsfolk. She is able to outsmart the entire town, including her own master, by switching her own child with her master's son. Ironically, the only white who figures out this scheme is Wilson, the person the townspeople labels a "pudd'nhead." Here, Twain again satirizes the whites of the south by showing their ignorance. These people are so preoccupied with the idea of race, yet they cannot tell the difference between a person they would label a "nigger" and the person they would consider a white. Twain also raises some questions regarding the nature of race. Are their innate qualities of race or does it depend entirely on upbringing? Twain questions nature versus nurture. In the story, Tom is a white boy that possesses black blood and Chambers is "white." Twain spends some time comparing these boys as they grow up. He says, Tom "...was a bad baby from the very beginning." He was given anything he desired. Tom grew to be small and w...