Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain

The overall plot of Pudd'nhead Wilson was one to keep readers interested. Crime stories are great for that very reason. But Twain wrote a more complex story than one about a murder. Many things in this book caught my attention, but none as much as the argument between nature and nurture.

Nature vs. nurture seemed to be a big point of this book. Would the real Chambers have turned out to be such a non-caring, cold-hearted, gambler if he had been raised as Chambers? I don't think so. And would the real Tom have turned out to be such a nice and caring person if he had been raised as Tom? I don't think so on that either. I do think that the Tom who grew up as Chambers would have had some differences. He would have been educated like he was supposed to be, but I'm not sure if he would have gotten into gambling. I also don't think he would have been harsh toward the real Chambers. I honestly think that nature and nurture both play a role in socializing members of the community. The real Tom seemed to have a kind soul and he either learned it from the world he grew up in, or he was naturally that way. It is hard to know because he wasn't raised as a white person, but both nature and nurture could have been thrown into the equation.

Chambers, the real Chambers, on the other hand might not have turned out as sweet as the fake Chambers had. Chambers seemed to think of himself first (which could have been a learned trait, but most humans tend to be self-centered). I think he learned to be cruel from the world around him and he felt like he had a right to the things in his world. I'm sure it was a hard punishment for him to suddenly become a slave after all the years of being privileged and I think it might have even made him more bitter.

Where the real Tom is nice and doesn't know what to do with his new found freedom, the real Chambers probably also feels trapped in his new role as slave. The pair really are two sides of the same coin and their destinies were tied together the moment Roxy decided to swap them from the cradle. Because of this, how much of their personalities were constructed because of those who nurtured them and how much was because of their nature? I guess it would be hard to tell because neither boy grew up in the world that they should have and that might have made all the difference.

Ending Thoughts on Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

After reading and discussing Moby-Dick for four weeks, it is a bit odd to be finished with the book. Even with those four weeks, I know we didn't cover hardly any of the content. This book is just so full of everything from Ishmael's made up whale classifications to the foreshadowing of what is eventually going to happen to the crew to Ishmael's use of mythological stories. I don't know if we would have been able to talk about everything even if we had been given more time.

Now that everything is said and done, I would have to say that I probably wouldn't recommend Moby-Dick to too many people. It was an interesting book and there were parts I enjoyed, but it really wasn't my cup of tea. I'm sure that I will probably re-read it at some point because I am sure I missed a lot of things while reading it this time. I think I would like to take the time to think things over and ponder what some of the chapters are actually meaning. I would probably recommend Moby-Dick to people who I know that tend to take things a bit more slowly. It wasn't a life changing book for me, but I can see that it is important to the literary canon.

This brings me to the pie chart I made earlier.

I still agree with this pie chart. Even after the entire tale is done, we still don't know much at all about Ishmael. We know he survived and that is pretty much it. It still kind of bothers me that we never knew if Ishmael is his real name or not. I also still find it hard to trust much of what he is saying because of this. I was hoping for some kind of character development on his part, but I never really saw any. He kept to himself and he reported on everything he saw on the ship. Mostly he reported about whales though. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to see whales in quite the same way after this. I also think that Ishmael got the adventure he was looking for. I'm just not sure that he actually saw the world. He did see a lot of ocean though.

Overall, Melville's Moby-Dick is a good book. It has a little bit of everything and a lot of crazy. It pushes the boundaries and makes people think. Which, I suppose, is what a good book is supposed to do.