Puddn’head Wilson

Did anything in your life happen that has ever seemed to be both tragic and comic at the same time? This may be an unusual question to ask, but the truth is, many things happen that are both tragic and comic in everyday life. To a teenager growing up today, maybe a teacher falling down a flight of stairs may be comic to him, but it is definitely a tragedy for the teacher. Not in all cases however, does a comedy have to involve somebody being hurt, nor involve direct comedy, such as jokes that are shared. Tragedy is most of the time, an event resulting in great loss and misfortune. Comedy is basically, a humorous occurrence. In the novel “Pudd’nhead Wilson”, by Mark Twain, the author makes the story both tragic and comic, through the use of the literary element irony.

In the novel, Mark Twain uses various things about society in tragic ways. He uses numerous issues, but one of the issues in the novel, which was also an important issue during Twain’s time, was slavery. Slavery is actually one of the topics that may be seen most as a tragedy in the novel, much more than any other topic. It reflects something that was not just a tragedy in the novel, but a real life tragedy. Addressing slavery and the cruel acts against blacks during the 1800’s, was clearly one of the authors aims when writing this novel. The town in the novel named Dawson’s Landing, believe in the “one drop rule”. The one drop rule assumes that once