Pudd'nhead Wilson

"The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says: 'It's a girl" (Shirley Chisholm). The quote before pertains to one of Mark Twain's characters named Roxana, or Roxy for short. Born into slavery, Roxy, however could pass as a white person if it were not for her speech. In the beginning Roxy gives birth to a boy he same day her Master's wife delivers their child, also a boy. The new addition to her Master's family, Percy Driscoll, is Thomas a Beckett Driscoll. Roxy names her child Valet de Chambers. In Pudd'nhead Wilson, by Mark Twain, Roxy is portrayed as motherly, tough, and resourceful.

Roxy like any other mother shows a maternal side. Being a slave there is always the threat of worse places to be. In Roxy's case the worst place to be enslaved is down the river. When her master Percy Driscoll finds money missing form his safe, he uses that threat to find the guilty. This makes Roxy scared not only for her life, but her child's life. In an attempt to spare her child from lifelong whippings and hard labor, she switches Valet de Chambers with her young master Thomas a Beckett Driscoll, who looked almost exactly like Chambers. "You's young Marse Tom fum dis out, en I got to practise and git used to 'memberin' to call you dat, honey, or I's gwine to make a mistake some time en git us bofe into trouble. Dah - now you lay still en don't fret no mo', Marse Tom - oh, thank de Lord in heavens, you's saved, you's saved! - dey ain't no man kin ever sell mammy's po'little honey down de river now!"(pg 13).

Being a slave all her life, Roxy knows of hard labor. Roxy went back into the work on a steamboat after being free. Years later she was sold back into slavery, down the river, in order to help pay off her son's debt. It was at her new master's ranch where her true test of strength took place at the new master's ranch. Roxy was working in the field a little slave girl that also worked at the ranch brought Roxy out some water and food. The master saw the little girl and began to whip her with a stick. Roxy was fed up with the abuse and snapped. "I coundn't stan' it. I snatched de stick outen his han' en laid flat. He laid dah moanin' en cussin', en all out of his head(pg 93).

Slaves do not get the privilege of being taught, and