Elected a Pudd’nhead: Reading the Irony of Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson

1. Elected a Pudd’nhead: Reading the Irony of Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson “Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.” --Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar

2. For today: --announcements --Mark Twain and Puddn’head Wilson --papers back: moving forward

3. Announcement --you may find extra credit opportunities on your own; when you find something, email me with details and I will pass it on to the class, if it looks like a good opportunity

4. Mark Twain and Pudd’nhead Wilson --1835-1910 --known as a “humorist,” not a serious author Mark Twain’s response to a positive review by William Dean Howells in 1871: “I am as uplifted and reassured by it as a mother who has given birth to a white baby when she was awfully afraid it was going to be a mulatto."

5. Pudd’nhead Wilson & Those Extraordinary Twins --Written 1892-1894 --Published serially in the Century Magazine, Dec. 1893-June 1894 --Published by subscription in 1894 --complicated history of composition (see intro to Those Extraordinary Twins, Prefaces to Norton edition (pg xi-xviii), textual notes in Norton (pp. 189-224, and James Maston, “The Text that Wrote Itself” (pp. 336-346).

6. Why did Twain choose to write about the 1830s and slavery in the 1890s? --slavery no longer an option in U.S. --what was going on? --what does it mean that authors chose to write about the past instead of addressing racial discourses directly? --how does this book address some of the same issues we discussed last week--education and uplift, social equality and miscegenation, law and custom, the development and enforcement of Jim Crow, etc.

7. Starting Small An Unfunny Aphorism: When interpreting a story (or when writing a paper) it is better to start from a specific passage and work to larger ideas than to start with big ideas and try to make the story “fit” with them… Thus: When reading Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson, one must start from how Mark Twain--the famous humorist--defines the operation of humor in the book, rather than starting with how you define humor and making the book “fit” those ideas…

8. So, to start small… …the key passage on humor is on page 5-7 (in chapter 1): It starts: “But for an unfortunate remark of his, he would no doubt have entered at once upon a successful career at Dawson’s Landing. But he made his fatal remark the first day he spent in the village, and it ‘gauged’ him. …” (5-6)

9. What was the comment that “gauged him”? “I wish I owned half of that dog.” “Why?” somebody asked. “Because I would kill my half.” (6) What kind of comment is this? How did David Wilson intend it to be interpreted? How did the townspeople interpret it? --townspeople: “fool” “ain’t in his right mind” “he hain’t got any mind” “lummux” “a Simon-pure labrick” “dam fool” “perfect jackass” “pudd’nhead” --“Mr. Wilson stood elected. The incident was told all over and gravely discussed by everybody. Within a week he had lost his first name; Pudd’nhead took its place. …That first day’s verdict made him a fool, and he was not able to get it set aside or even modified.” (6-7)

10. What is Twain doing? What would Twain’s view on this be? What evidence do we have about what Twain is doing with this introduction of Wilson? What does it mean for the reader?

11. Evidence --Twain puts entries from Wilson’s almanac at the beginning of each chapter. --Twain often writes in a humorous style similar to these aphorisms.

12. My argument: Twain wants the model reader to get the irony of the novel, like David Wilson would, but like the townspeople don’t. In other words, he doesn’t want you to be a pudd’nhead… “For some years Wilson had been privately at work on a whimsical almanac, for his amusement--a calendar, with a little dab of ostensible philosophy, usually in ironical form…. But irony was not for those people [the townspeople, who read the entries]; their mental vision was not focused for it. They read those playful trifles in the solidest earnest, and decided without hesitancy that if there had ever been any doubt that Dave Wilson was a pudd’nhead--which there hadn’t--this revelation removed any doubt for good and all.” (27)

13. So What? In a 2-page paper, you could argue whether Twain sides with Wilson’s form of humor or the townspeople…an easy argument, really, but why is it important?

14. Here’s a passage from a paper I wrote on Pudd’nhead Wilson From the very beginning in the “Whisper to the Reader” the author sets up a relationship in which we, as readers, are tested. The key moment of this interpretive hazing is the “reading” of David Wilson’s sense of humor by a nameless group of citizens. As the narrator points out, the townspeople are unable to read the irony of either Wilson’s quip about killing half an annoying dog or his aphorisms—stating, “but irony was not for these people; their mental vision was not focused for it.” (25) The character of Wilson, although not a stand in for Twain, is definitely portrayed with more sympathy than others in the novel, and his intelligence and wit distinguish him from the ordinary townsfolk who have elected him a “pudd’nhead.” Undoubtedly, the narrative is influenced by Wilson’s aphorisms, as several passages from the book could possibly be excerpted as calendar entries, or directly connect with the sayings. Ironically, it is Wilson’s use of irony as a form of humor that leads the townsfolk to question his intelligence. But the model reader should see the joke and should thus be on the lookout for other instances of irony throughout the book, for points where Twain has his characters undertake a surface interpretation of events rather than the ironical interpretation of the book’s events. In other words, we should endeavor to be like the model reader Twain imagines and be careful not to be elected pudd’nheads ourselves when reading the novel.

15. So, what are the interpretive questions that we are face with, as readers, in PW? --education-- --science-- --law-- --other--

16. Papers back: --Graded on a letter scale: A,A-,A-/B+, B+, etc. --Rules for questions: 24 hours, read through comments closely, come talk to me with specific questions --My view on feedback

17. Levels of Comments: --formatting --introduction and thesis --paragraph-level: topic sentences, evidence, organization, concluding sentence and transition --sentence-level: word choice, sentence structure, wording

18. Things to notice: --there is no “s” in toward (unless British) --pay attention to historical context --language use: certain racial keywords can be quoted but not used --so-and-so “represents” such-and-such --slavery as a cultural mirror

19. Significant Revision: You may revise the 2-page papers and/or the paragraph. You must undertake “significant revision,” which is a beyond sentence-level to paragraph- and structural-levels. Simply editing will not get you a better grade (and grade is not guaranteed to get better). See me for assistance or with questions. You must turn in the original paper with my comments on it in order for me to consider your revision. Revisions are due: Monday, March 9.

20. For Wednesday: --be sure to have reading for week done --bring book, also bring book --be prepared to participate