Story summary
パッディンヘッド・ウィルソンの悲劇のあらすじ
- 読了8分
- 7 parts
- 音声は近日公開
A secret baby swap and a lawyer's fingerprint collection connect two Missouri boys to a hidden truth.
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パッディンヘッド・ウィルソンの悲劇の概要
要約：読むのに8 minかかります
- 読書時間
- 約3 h 25 min2 h 40 min fast, 4 h slow
- 所要時間
- 48,300語
- ライブラリ内の難易度
- 標準 longer sentences, everyday words
- 初版刊行年
- 1894by マーク・トウェイン
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). 古典を読むのにかかる時間 · 更新日
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パッディンヘッド・ウィルソンの悲劇 in short
At heart, this is a story about a label. A town brands a man a fool for one remark, and a law brands a baby a slave for one thirty-second of his blood. Twain shows how both labels harden into fact, because everyone around the person agrees to treat them as true.
What パッディンヘッド・ウィルソンの悲劇 is about
What would you do if one careless joke could label you a fool for twenty years? In 1830, a young lawyer named David Wilson walks into the Missouri river town of Dawson's Landing. On his first day, an unseen dog yelps in the street. Wilson says he wishes he owned half of that dog, because he would kill his half. The townspeople cannot read his face, and by the end of the week they have settled the matter. He is a fool, and from that day he is called Pudd'nhead.
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson is a short novel by Mark Twain, printed in 1894. It is funny on the surface and sharp underneath, with a saying from Wilson's Calendar at the head of each chapter. You get a clear-eyed look at slavery, race, and the power of a name, a mother's desperate choice, Italian twins, a duel, and a quiet man with a box of glass strips.
対象読者. Readers who enjoy sly humor with a serious edge, questions of identity and justice, vivid small-town characters, and mysteries with carefully planted clues will love this novel.
The story in 7 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A proud town and a branded stranger
Dawson's Landing sits on the Missouri side of the Mississippi, half a day by steamboat below St. Louis. Twain paints it as a pretty place. White houses vanish under rose vines and honeysuckle, and cats sleep on the windowsills. Then he adds a plain fact. It is a slaveholding town, and the farms behind it are worked by enslaved people.
At the top of local society stands Judge York Leicester Driscoll, generous, fair in his own eyes, and proud of his Virginia ancestry. His closest friend is the lawyer Pembroke Howard, an authority on the code of honor. The Judge's younger brother Percy is a busy speculator in land.
On the first of February, 1830, a son is born in Percy's house. The same day, a baby boy is born to Roxana, one of his enslaved women, whom everyone calls Roxy. When Percy's wife dies within the week, Roxy is left in charge of both infants.
That same month David Wilson arrives, and the dog remark brands him. He attracts no legal clients and hangs a sign offering his work as a surveyor and accountant. He fills his free time with palmistry and a shallow box of glass strips. He asks people to press their fingertips on the glass, and he labels each strip with a name and a date. He also writes his Calendar of ironic sayings.
A pleasant surface can hide a cruel structure, and a town can ruin a clever man with one hasty verdict.
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Two babies, one threat, one swap
One hot July afternoon, Roxy stands outside Wilson's window with both boys.
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The false heir grows into a tyrant
From then on, Twain calls the real heir Chambers and the usurper Tom.
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The Italian twins dazzle the town
The widow Cooper, called Aunt Patsy, rents her spare room after a year of waiting.
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Roxy returns and a kick starts a feud
Roxy comes home after eight years on the river.
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A mother sold down the river
Tom's debts mount again, and a thief on a steamboat robs him in his sleep.
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Race, training, and Twain's sly voice
The central joke of the book is also its saddest one.
Read all 7 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- David Wilson A New York lawyer nicknamed Pudd'nhead who collects fingerprints on glass and keeps a Calendar of dry sayings. He wants to be taken seriously.
- Roxana An enslaved woman, one sixteenth Black, who swaps two babies to save her son from being sold down the river.
- Tom Driscoll Roxy's son, raised as the Judge's heir. He is spoiled and cruel, and he wants money, pleasure, and safety above all.
- Chambers The rightful heir, raised as a servant and bullied by Tom. He is strong and patient and keeps his silence.
- Judge York Leicester Driscoll Leading citizen of Dawson's Landing and a proud Virginian who lives by the code of honor and dotes on his nephew.
- Luigi and Angelo Capello Italian twins who arrive as noble guests. They charm the town and hope to settle there.
- Pembroke Howard A lawyer and the Judge's closest friend, also devoted to Virginia's code of honor.
- Rowena Cooper A romantic nineteen-year-old who longs for glory and thinks the twins will bring it to her town.
How it ends (spoiler)
At the trial of the twins for the murder of Judge Driscoll, Wilson uses his fingerprint records to clear them and to prove that Tom killed his supposed uncle. He also shows that the babies were swapped in the cradle. Tom confesses and is sentenced to life in prison. The creditors of the old estate claim him as property, so the governor pardons him and he is sold down the river. The rightful heir is free and rich but cannot fit into white society. Roxy is heartbroken.
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『パッディンヘッド・ウィルソンの悲劇』についての質問
What is The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson about?
It follows a Missouri river town in the years before the Civil War. An enslaved mother swaps her baby with her master's heir, and two boys grow up in the wrong roles while a lawyer called Pudd'nhead quietly collects fingerprints.
Why is David Wilson called Pudd'nhead?
On his first day in town, Wilson says he wishes he owned half of a barking dog so he could kill his half. The townspeople cannot make sense of the joke, decide he is a fool, and the nickname sticks.
Who are Roxy, Tom, and Chambers?
Roxy is an enslaved woman who is one sixteenth Black. Her son Tom is raised as the white heir of the Driscoll house after she swaps the cradles, and the real heir, Chambers, grows up as a servant.
Is Pudd'nhead Wilson a true story and when was it written?
It is fiction by Mark Twain, written in 1893. The setting of Dawson's Landing is invented, but it draws on the Missouri river-town world of Twain's own childhood and on the real facts of slavery.
What is the main message of Pudd'nhead Wilson?
Twain shows that labels such as fool, slave, or gentleman are often built by custom and law, not nature. The book asks how much of a person comes from birth and how much from the roles society assigns.
この版を引用します
Twain, Mark. The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-tragedy-of-puddnhead-wilson.
Twain, M. (2026). The tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-tragedy-of-puddnhead-wilson (Original work published 1894)
Twain, Mark. The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-tragedy-of-puddnhead-wilson.
@book{twain2026tragedy,
author = {Twain, Mark},
title = {The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-tragedy-of-puddnhead-wilson},
note = {First published 1894}
}
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