There are too many striking parallels between the characters of Roxy in Mark Twain's "Pudd'nhead Wilson" and Eliza in Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" to be overlooked. The two women are slaves in the pre-Civil War south. They are both from the northern part of the south: Eliza lives in Kentucky and Roxy lives in Missouri. They are both mostly white, with Eliza a quadroon and Roxy being only one sixteenth black. They are also young mothers who are afraid that their children will be sold "down the river", and take extraordinary measures to prevent that from happening. Although these background similarities are very strong, the two women are very distinct characters, and their authors use them in very different ways, to very different ends, and with different results.

Eliza is so overly romanticized that she would be a good candidate for sainthood. She is portrayed as a perfectly loyal and hardworking slave woman who takes her religion very seriously and truly believes that: "'If you only trust in God, and try to do right, He'll deliver you'" (Stowe, 17). Eliza speaks better English than many of the upper-class whites do and can read and write. In fact, she is so good that only vice is eavesdropping.

When Eliza overhears her master talking to a slave trader about selling her son, Harry, she decides to run away with him. Although she recognizes that this is the only course of action available to her, she is also very regretful:

Eliza behaves like this because she was written for a very specific time and a very specific purpose. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was written c1851-1852 and was primarily directed at white housewives in the north. Stowe uses very simplistic language and simplistic characterization to make the reader personally care about the characters, and form an emotional tie with them. Stowe appeals to the reader's heart by illustrating the cruelty of the system of slavery, making the point by showing them the story of a truly good woman driven to risk her life and freedom by the injustice of slavery.

Mark Twain's situation in writing Pudd'nhead Wilson was quite different. Published in 1894, Twain was writing to an audience 40 years after the abolition of slavery, and didn't have to use the emotional appeals of Stowe in order to justify his position on slavery. Furthermore, Roxy's situation is so similar to Eliza's that she may have been written as a subtle satire of the character of Eliza, because not only was Uncle Tom's Cabin one of the most popular books of the Nineteenth Century, but Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe were also neighbors. While Eliza was a quadroon who was so fair that she was even able to pass for white during part of her travels, Roxy is far lighter skinned. Twain gives her a much more realistic dialect, however, "From Roxy's manner of speech, a stranger would have expected her to be black, but she was not. Only one sixteenth of her was black, and that sixteenth did not show" (Twain, 29). Unlike Eliza, Roxy can not read or write and her vices far exceed simple eavesdropping. Roxy drinks frequently, and is very proud of the affair she had with Col. Essex, one of the most prominent men in the town, saying that he was "de highest quality in dis whole town- ole Virginny stock" (Twain, 73).

Roxy also "gets religion" like Eliza did, but for Roxy, the change was much less permanent: "She made this sacrifice as a matter of religious etiquette; as a thing necessary just now, but by no means to be wrestled into a precedent; no a week or two would limber up her piety, and then she would be rational again" (Twain, 32). About the only tangible effect of Roxy's brush with religion is that it prevented her from being sold by her master. This near miss did cause her to realize that her son could easily be sold just like the others in her household. Her reaction to this realization is very different than Eliza's: "A profound terror had taken possession of her. Her child could grow up and be sold down the river! ... 'Dey sha'n't, oh dey sha'n't! -yo' po' mammy will kill you fust!'" (Twain, 34). Roxy soon decides that a better course of action would be to switch her child in the cradle with the child of her master, something Eliza would never dream of doing.

Eliza and Roxy here written in radically different times, for different audiences and with very different purposes in mind. They were both made mostly white for purposes of plot: Eliza so that she would be more sympathetic to readers and be able to pass as white, and Roxy to better illustrate the absurdity of the "fiction of law and custom" (Twain, 29) which oppressed her, and so that her son could be easily switched with a white baby without anyone noticing. Uncle Tom's Cabin was written to appeal to simple readers, and consequently, doesn't make use of the very complex characters or sarcastic irony of Mark Twain. Eliza was created with sheer pathos in mind, and quickly became one of the most popular literary figures of the Nineteenth Century, with a very rich stage history. She, along with Uncle Tom, Cassie, Ole' Prue, and the rest, did accomplish their goal of generating sympathy for the plight of the slaves.

Twain's goal was different, but similar, to Stowe's. He intended to illustrate the fallacy of natural determinism, and racism in general. He was writing to a very different audience, however, and uses a very different tactic. Twain uses his mastery of cynicism and sarcasm to poke holes in the theory that an entire person's being is defined by their lineage, hoping that it can then deflate in the reader's mind. He does this by showing that Roxy, who is a black slave, and therefore inferior to the high-born "First Families of Virginia" [(FFV)] is often more cunning than a member of the illustrious upper class, who "was born a gentleman" (93). This theory is also deflated by the fact that Roxy's son could pass, unnoticed, for the first 20 years of his life as one of the FFV, while the true Driscoll heir is raised, unquestionably, to be a slave. Twain doesn't need to point out the fact that, were natural determinism true, Roxy's son would be quickly found out and the true heir would not be mistaken for a slave, and the advice Roxy gives her son would be useless, because of her "black blood".

Unfortunately for Mark Twain, his sarcasm and appeals to "common sense" are often lost on audiences, and his point is diluted by seemingly contradictory statements. In this way, Stowe's simple and unambiguous approach is much more effective, and her simple characters, like Eliza, fulfill their purpose much more effectively than Roxy does.