Mark Twain had an avid interest in human nature and how people become who they are. Above all, Twain believed that a person’s environment—their home life, social status, relationships, and so on—do more to determine a person’s character than mere biology or genetics. Twain’s satirical novel The Prince and the Pauper features a colorful cast of characters ranging from alcoholics to optimistic street urchins to royalty to criminals. Many of them, including Tom Canty (a poor beggar) and Edward Tudor (King Henry VIII’s son), are proof that genetics is at least not the sole determining factor in a person’s character. If this were true then Tom, whose parents are both very poor and very ignorant, would probably be ignorant, too; and Edward, whose father’s name is feared by people all over England, would probably be single-mindedly power hungry and cold. Instead, Edward and Tom seem to be products of the most positive aspects of their respective environments. Tom’s character seems to be more a product of his mother’s kindness and favorite neighbor’s encouragement than his John Canty’s (his father) abuse, while Edward’s character is shaped by his father’s gentleness and kindness towards him, not by his father’s open cruelty to others. In The Prince and the Pauper, Twain argues that the positive elements of a person’s environment often have the greatest impact on them, enabling them to overcome the negative aspects of their genetics and upbringing.
Tom Canty was born to an impoverished family and is frequently beaten by his alcoholic father and Grammer Canty (his grandmother), but because some of his family and friends strove to be kind to him, he didn’t develop quite as many vices as his father. Tom’s family is led by his father and Grammer Canty, neither of which hold respectable positions in society: “John Canty was a thief, and his mother a beggar,” and both enjoy being cruel. Many people would believe that means Tom can be no better than they are because he shares their genes and thus their characters. But although Tom’s father and grandmother often beat and starve him, at the end of the day “his starving mother would slip to him stealthily with any miserable scrap or crust she had been able to save for him by going hungry herself.” Even though Tom is surrounded by abuse and misery, he learns about compassion, selflessness, love, kindness, and fairness from his mother. Furthermore, Tom makes friends with a priest named Father Andrew, who is kind to Tom and teaches him how to read and write. Because of this, Tom becomes relatively “deep and wise,” highlighting how positive figures in a person’s life can prove stronger than the negative.
As the only son of an English king, Edward is spoiled and doted upon by everyone. While this does make Edward selfish, his father’s genuine kindness and gentleness towards him is what shapes his fundamental goodness. When King Henry VIII dies, many people are happy because they suffered the worst of his anger, oppressive laws, and unjust decisions (for example, the persecution of Catholics during the Reformation). For Edward, however, Henry’s death is heartbreaking because “the grim tyrant who had been such a terror to others had always been gentle with him,” meaning Edward was on the receiving end of all Henry’s good qualities and never his bad. Because Henry is so kind and gentle with Edward, Edward develops a strong sense of right and wrong and he wants to be kind to other people. When he sees Tom being abused by guards, Edward cries out, “How dar’st thou use the king my father’s meanest subject so!” Edward’s exclamation shows that he believes his father would condemn the mistreatment of anyone, no matter how lowly. However, later he learns that his father does mistreat people by passing oppressive laws with harsh punishments that predominately affect people like Tom, members of the lower classes. Unlike his father, “King Edward VI lived only a few years, poor boy, but he lived them worthily.” This means that Edward goes on to become a just and beloved monarch, but the seeds of his kindness and justice are ironically planted in him by a notoriously unjust king. This is because Henry created a distance between the way he treated other people and the way he treated Edward, thus subtly encouraging his son to develop the best possible qualities and setting Edward up to become a better ruler than himself.
Both Tom and Edward grow up in world that many people view negatively—Henry VIII was considered a corrupt and cruel king, and John Canty was looked down upon as a liar and abuser. But the presence of good makes all the difference for both Edward and Tom, both of whom are characterized by positive qualities like fairness, kindness, honesty, and a love of justice despite also being surrounded by negative ones.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Nature vs. Nurture ThemeTracker
Nature vs. Nurture Quotes in The Prince and the Pauper
All Offal Court was just such another hive as Canty’s house. Drunkenness, riot and brawling were the order, there, every night and nearly all night long. Broken heads were as common as hunger in that place. Yet little Tom was not unhappy. He had a hard time of it, but did not know it. […] When he came home empty handed at night, he knew his father would curse him and thrash him first, and that when he was done the awful grandmother would do it all over again and improve on it; and that away in the night his starving mother would slip to him stealthily with any miserable scrap or crust she had been able to save for him by going hungry herself, notwithstanding she was often caught in that sort of treason and soundly beaten for it by her husband.
“When I am king, they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books; for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved, and the heart. I will keep this diligently in my remembrance, that this day’s lesson be not lost upon me, and my people suffer thereby; for learning softeneth the heart and breedeth gentleness and charity.”
“List ye all! This my son is mad; but it is not permanent. Overstudy hath done this, and somewhat too much of confinement. Away with his books and teachers! see to it. Pleasure him with sports, beguile him in wholesome ways, so that his health come again.” He raised himself higher still, and went on with energy, “He is mad; but he is my son, and England’s heir; and, mad or sane, still shall reign! And hear ye further, and proclaim it: whoso speaketh of this his distemper worketh against the peace and order of these realms, and shall to the gallows!”
To the rest of the world the name of Henry VIII brought a shiver, and suggested an ogre whose nostrils breathed destruction and whose hand dealt scourgings and death; but to this boy the name brought only sensations of pleasure, the figure it invoked wore a countenance that was all gentleness and affection. He called to mind a long succession of loving passages between his father and himself, and dwelt fondly upon them, his unstinted tears attesting how deep and real was the grief that possessed his heart.
“I am Yokel, once a farmer and prosperous, with loving wife and kids—now am I somewhat different in estate and calling; and the wife and kids are gone; mayhap they are in heaven, mayhap in—in the other place—but the kindly God be thanked, they bide no more in England! My good old blameless mother strove to earn bread by nursing the sick; one of these died, the doctors knew not how, so my mother was burnt for a witch, whilst my babes looked on and wailed. English law!—up, all, with your cups!—now altogether and with a cheer!—drink to the merciful English law that delivered her from the English hell! […] I begged, from house to house—I and the wife—bearing with us the hungry kids—but it was crime to be hungry in England—so they stripped us and lashed us through three towns. Drink ye all again to the merciful English law!—for its lash drank deep of my Mary’s blood and its blessed deliverance came quick. She lies there, in the potter’s field, safe from all harms. And the kids—well, whilst the law lashed me from town to town, they starved.”
“His father wrought us evil, he destroyed us—and is gone down into the eternal fires! Yes, down into the eternal fires! He escaped us—but it was God’s will, yes it was God’s will, we must not repine. But he hath not escaped the fires! no, he hath not escaped the fires, the consuming, unpitying remorseless fires—and they are everlasting!”
[…]
“It was his father that did it all. I am but an archangel—but for him, I should be Pope!”
The king’s eye burned with passion. He said—
“None believe in me—neither wilt thou. But no matter—within the compass of a month thou shalt be free; and more, the laws that have dishonored thee, and shamed the English name, shall be swept from the statute books. The world is made wrong; kings should go to school to their own laws, at times, and so learn mercy.”
He enjoyed his splendid clothes; and ordered more: he found his four hundred servants too few for his proper grandeur, and trebled them. The adulation of salaaming courtiers came to be sweet music to his ears. He remained kind and gentle, and a sturdy and determined champion of all that were oppressed, and he made tireless war upon unjust laws: yet upon occasion, being offended, he could turn upon an earl, or even a duke, and give him a look that would make him tremble.
Tom’s poor mother and sisters travelled the same road out of his mind. At first he pined for them, sorrowed for them, longed to see them, but later, the thought of their coming some day in their rags and dirt, and betraying him with their kisses, and pulling him down from his lofty place, and dragging him back to penury and degradation and the slums, made him shudder. At last they ceased to trouble his thoughts almost wholly. And he was content, even glad; for, whenever their mournful and accusing faces did rise before him now, they made him feel more despicable than the worms that crawl.
