What do you know about Roxana from Twain’s 1894 tale, PUDD’NHEAD WILSON?
First published in 1894, Pudd’nhead Wilson is a novel written by Mark Twain that revolves around two boys, their enslaved mother, and a series of mysterious events, which an aspiring lawyer known as Pudd’nhead Wilson aims to solve. The story set in a pre-Civil War Missouri interweaves the complexities of race in the United States and the argument of Nature versus Nurture.
Who is Roxana?
“To all intents and purposes Roxy was as white as anybody, but the one sixteenth of her which was black outvoted the other fifteen parts and made her a Negro. She was a slave, and salable as such.”
She is the biological mother of Tom, who passed as white and became the son of Percy Driscoll, her enslaver. Roxana ends up raising Valet de Chambre as her own (Driscoll’s biological son) for 23 years.
What does Roxana do?
After Percy Driscoll threatens to sell Roxana and her son down south, she swaps her child with Driscoll’s son, so he can escape slavery and grow up as a wealthy white child — as opposed to ending the pair’s lives to avoid further enslavement, which she considered.
She reveals Tom’s real identity to him and uses his black origins as blackmail to acquire money from Tom. Eventually, they concoct a plan together to secure their freedom, but it ultimately fails.
What is Roxana motivated by?
“A profound terror had taken possession of [Roxana]. Her child could grow up and be sold down the river! The thought crazed her with horror.”
I don’t hate you so much now, but I’ve hated you a many a year—and anybody would. Didn’t I change you off, en give you a good fambly en a good name, en made you a white gen’l’man en rich, wid store clothes on—en what did I git for it? You despised me all de time, en was al’ays sayin’ mean hard things to me befo’ folks, en wouldn’t ever let me forgit I’s a nigger—en—en—” – Roxana, Chapter IX
Discussion Questions
If you were Roxana, would you also swap your child into a white family even if that meant subjugating another child to the cruelty of slavery?
What does this say about the story of survival?
How can you draw a comparison between Roxana’s story and other works? For example, “Beloved” by Toni Morrison?
What does Roxana’s predicament illustrate about the “one-drop rule” and the social conception of race?