Identity in Pudd’nHead Wilson

Pudd’nhead Wilson presents many ideas about how a child’s race, birth and nurturing will affect their character years later. I’ll leave out the premise since you should already know it if you’re reading this. The two boys switched at birth look almost identical even to Roxy, so nobody can tell which child is white and which is black. I’ll call them by their original names just to avoid confusion from now on. Anyway, Collins is spoiled rotten and is extremely cruel towards his slaves, just as a white slaveholder would be. Had the twins never been switched I’d imagine that Tom would do the same thing. I believe that Twain was trying to say that your birth and race have permanent effects on your identity but that the way you were raised matters far more. The idea that whites have superior genetics is put down immediately by the fact that Collins and Tom look nearly identical and that Collins is Tom’s master. Of course, there are inevitably ties that bind them to their true identity as it is eventually found out who they truly are. There are things that neither characters can hide that have simply always been a part of their identity, this being fingerprints. Ultimately this discovery ruins Tom’s and Collin’s lives as their identity up to this point had been completely different from the one they were supposed to have. This proves that despite Tom supposedly having superior genetics, he is far more used to being a slave due to his experiences.