Judgement

Over the past few weeks, especially with Coverdale in The Blithedale Romance, we've talked a lot about the judgment that is often passed upon characters in a book by the narrator. In Puddn'head Wilson, the author, Mark Twain, is the narrator of the story, so a clearer view on the characters is provided, as well as their judgements on one another.
David Wilson, a new resident of the town of Dawson's Landing, comes off as quite a strange character in his first encounter with the others who live there. In a rather strange and almost forgettable conversation about a dog who is howling and barking obnoxiously in the distance, Wilson states to those he is chatting with, "I wish I owned half of that dog." When asked why, he simply states, "Because I would kill my half" (24). Naturally, the group is taken aback by this. "What did he reckon would become of the other half if he killed his half?" (24) one of them asks. Because of this curious interaction, he is thereafter called Puddn'head Wilson throughout Dawson's Landing. Even when Wilson eventually becomes well liked, the nickname still remains, reminding the reader of his peculiar comment, but also of the ability of people to judge someone on the smallest of characteristics.
However, this judgement placed upon Wilson is contradictory to many others throughout the town. Although the focus seems to be on him and his odd habits, one of which is finger printing, there are other characters who act much stranger. For example, on page 30, the reader is told that Mr. York Leicester Driscoll loses a sum of money, and without question blames it on one of his four slaves. Given the historical context of the book, this accusation almost goes without saying. In fact, Twain doesn't even mention any other possibility. Driscoll demands to know who the thief is, and when none of his slaves confess he threatens to sell all four of them down the river, a fate "equivalent to condemning them to hell!" (33). After going back on his threat, and simply selling them in the area, Driscoll revels in his self-appointed mercy, stating, "He knew himself, that he had done a noble thing, and was privately well please with his magnanimity...he set the incident down in his diary, so that his son might read it in after years, and be thereby moved to deeds of gentleness and humanity himself" (33). The man sells his slaves, quite likely to a fate worse than they already had, and considers himself a martyr.
Similarly, on page 34, Roxy (one of Driscoll's slaves) cannot stop thinking about his threat to sell them down the river. She decides that she must kill her own child to protect it from such a fate, stating "Oh, I got to kill my chile, day ain't no yuther way...Oh, I got to do it, yo' po' mammy's got to kill you to save you. honey." Even the slightest possibility of a fate worse than death for her child sends Roxy into a paranoid frenzy. However, instead of killing her baby, she exchanges it with Driscoll's child by switching their clothes. Without another thought, she condemns a child to slavery, without a so much as a second glance.
These two specific incidents in the book show that even though Puddn'head Wilson is considered an idiot for making a comment about killing half of a dog, these two characters speak and perform actions just as strange as he, justifying themselves through denial and constructed excuses. However, since no one is around to see them, to judge, they aren't recorded past the narrator's telling. I found it interesting that a man, no matter how liked and active in a community, can essentially be condemned because of one strange comment, especially in a town full of those just as unstable if not more so.