The Prince and the Pauper

The Prince and the Pauper

by

Mark Twain

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Wealth, Poverty, and Morality Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Appearances vs. Reality Theme Icon
Wealth, Poverty, and Morality Theme Icon
Justice Theme Icon
Nature vs. Nurture Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Prince and the Pauper, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Wealth, Poverty, and Morality Theme Icon

In Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper there is a clear disconnect between the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor. From wealthy people’s lofty positions in fine estates far away from the dirt, noise, and misery in London’s slums, they place no real value on the lives of the poor. On the other hand, England’s poor see royalty—and particularly King Henry VIII—as morally bankrupt, corrupt, and unnecessarily cruel. In fact, some say King Henry VIII forced them into a life of crime by passing too many restrictive laws that limited their ability to make money through honest means, including begging. In other words, the lower classes feel victimized by the upper classes, and the upper classes believe the lower classes are subhuman. When an impoverished beggar named Tom Canty gets mistaken for King Henry VIII’s son, Edward Tudor, and vice versa when the two boys swap clothes, each boy learns valuable lessons about how the other half lives and the role social class has in shaping a person’s morality. Through Edward and Tom’s experiences and the decisions that they make when they’re finally restored to their rightful places in the world, Twain examines the corrupting influence of both extreme wealth and extreme poverty, and how each circumstance creates its own vices.

As the Prince of Wales, Edward has been taught to believe that every man, woman, and child in England admires him and is eager to serve him. When he falls in with the men and women of the lower classes, however, he learns that many people scorn his family for the unjust laws they pass. Nobody believes Edward (dressed in Tom’s clothing) when he says that he’s the Prince of Wales, so they feel free to share their opinions on King Henry VIII and his laws. One man believes that “the heavy curse of heaven [will] fall on the land that hath commanded it,” meaning that God will punish those who pass England’s unjust laws. At another point, Edward is nearly murdered by a vindictive Catholic priest turned hermit who says Edward’s “father wrought us evil, he destroyed us” (this refers to the Reformation when Henry VIII established the Church of England and persecuted English Catholics). This shows Edward that his father is not universally praised and loved, but is often seen as a corrupt villain. Most of the criminals Edward meets are extremely poor, and this poverty—which they largely blame on Henry’s laws—drives them to commit crimes like theft and fraud to keep themselves fed. When they’re punished for these crimes, it makes them even more resentful of the rich and even more eager to get revenge on them by continuing to steal.

Tom has always admired royalty, believing that they are somehow superior to all other people. After being mistaken for Edward and forced into the life of a prince, however, Tom realizes that being a royal is transforming him into someone he doesn’t like. At first, Tom realizes that being royal is like being “shut up in [a] gilded cage.” Although he has the wealth and power he always dreamed of, Tom is forced to abide by certain customs and rituals, which is the price he must pay to be treated with so much deference and respect. After only a few days, Tom feels “less uncomfortable than at first.” Tom is adapting to his new lifestyle, gradually accepting practices that made him miserable just days before. During the coronation parade, Tom sees his mother and she recognizes him, but he publicly denies any connection to her. Immediately “a shame [falls] upon him which consume[s] his pride to ashes,” which means Tom realizes that he’s been transformed into something shameful in the short time he’s lived as a prince.

In the end, both Edward and Tom reclaim their identities but they don’t simply jump back into their previous lives unchanged. Instead, Tom shares the benefits of his new position as King’s Ward with his family and Edward takes care not to let his lofty position corrupt him to the point that he forgets the suffering of others. Edward begins to habitually talk about his experiences with England’s lower classes “and thus keep its sorrowful spectacles fresh in his memory and the springs of pity replenished in his heart.” Above all, Edward fears that he might cause the same widespread misery as his father, so he tries to keep all he saw and learned present in his mind to guard against the corrupting influence that a life of decadence far removed from the suffering lower classes can have. In the end, whenever one of the nobility questions Edward’s leniency when it comes to laws, he asks them, “What dost thou know of suffering and oppression? I and my people know, but not thou.” The emphasis on the first “thou” indicates that Edward also believes most people who live in the palace are too far removed from genuine suffering to understand it. What Tom and Edward ultimately learn is that wealth often creates indifference to the suffering of others while poverty often leads to crime, both of which contribute to the corruption of a person’s sense of right and wrong.

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Wealth, Poverty, and Morality Quotes in The Prince and the Pauper

Below you will find the important quotes in The Prince and the Pauper related to the theme of Wealth, Poverty, and Morality.
Chapter 2 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI, Tom Canty, John Canty / John Hobbs, Tom’s Mother, Grammer Canty
Page Number: 6-7
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

“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.”

Related Characters: Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI (speaker), Tom Canty (speaker), King Henry VIII (speaker)
Page Number: 22
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

“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!”

Related Characters: King Henry VIII (speaker), Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI, Tom Canty
Related Symbols: Clothes
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

“Now were he impostor and called himself prince, look you that would be natural; that would be reasonable. But lived ever an impostor yet, who, being called prince by the king, prince by the court, prince by all, denied his dignity and pleaded against his exaltation? No! By the soul of St. Swithin, no! This is the true prince, gone mad!

Related Characters: Earl of Hertford / Duke of Somerset (speaker), Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI, Tom Canty, Tom’s Mother, King Henry VIII
Related Symbols: Clothes
Page Number: 41
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

“O my poor boy! thy foolish reading hath wrought its woful work at last, and ta’en thy wit away. Ah! why didst thou cleave to it when I so warned thee ‘gainst it? Thou’st broke thy mother’s heart!”

Related Characters: Tom’s Mother (speaker), Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI, Tom Canty, John Canty / John Hobbs
Page Number: 55-56
Explanation and Analysis:

In a moment all the heavy sorrow and misery which sleep had banished were upon him again, and he realized that he was no longer a petted prince in a palace, with the adoring eyes of a nation upon him, but a pauper, an outcast, clothed in rags, prisoner in a den fit only for beasts, and consorting with beggars and thieves.

Related Characters: Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI, Tom Canty, John Canty / John Hobbs, Grammer Canty
Related Symbols: Clothes
Page Number: 60
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

“Answer me truly, on thy faith and honor! Uttered I here a command, the which none but a king might hold privilege and prerogative to utter, would such commandment be obeyed, and none rise up to say me nay?”

“None, my liege, in all these realms. In thy person bides the majesty of England. Thou art the king—thy word is law.”

Tom responded in a strong, earnest voice, and with great animation—

“Then shall the king’s law be law of mercy from this day, and never more be law of blood! Up from thy knees and away! To the Tower and say the king decrees the duke of Norfolk shall not die!”

The words were caught up and carried eagerly from lip to lip far and wide over the hall, and as Hertford hurried from the presence, another prodigious shout burst forth—

“The reign of blood is ended! Long live Edward, King of England!”

Related Characters: Tom Canty (speaker), Earl of Hertford / Duke of Somerset (speaker), Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI, King Henry VIII, Duke of Norfolk
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

“And so I am become a knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows! A most odd and strange position, truly, for one so matter-of-fact as I. I will not laugh—no, God forbid, for this thing which is so substanceless to me is real to him. And to me, also, in one way, it is not a falsity, for it reflects with truth the sweet and generous spirit that is in him.” After a pause: “Ah, what if he should call me by my fine title before folk!—there’d be a merry contrast betwixt my glory and my raiment! But no matter: let him call me what he will, so it please him; I shall be content.”

Related Characters: Miles Hendon (speaker), Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI
Related Symbols: Clothes
Page Number: 81-82
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

A messenger returned, to report that the crowd were following a man, a woman, and a young girl to execution for crimes committed against the peace and dignity of the realm.

Death—and a violent death—for these poor unfortunates! The thought wrung Tom’s heart-strings. The spirit of compassion took control of him, to the exclusion of all other considerations; he never thought of the offended laws, or of the grief or loss which these three criminals had inflicted upon their victims, he could think of nothing but the scaffold and the grisly fate hanging over the heads of the condemned. His concern made him even forget, for the moment, that he was but the false shadow of a king, not the substance[.]

Related Characters: Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI, Tom Canty, King Henry VIII
Page Number: 104-105
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

“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.”

Related Characters: Yokel (speaker), Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI, John Canty / John Hobbs, King Henry VIII
Page Number: 126-127
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

It was a meal which was distinguished by this curious feature, that rank was waived on both sides; yet neither recipient of the favor was aware that it had been extended. The goodwife had intended to feed this young tramp with broken victuals in a corner, like any other tramp, or like a dog; but she was so remorseful for the scolding she had given him, that she did what she could to atone for it by allowing him to sit at the family table and eat with his betters, on ostensible terms of equality with them; and the king, on his side, was so remorseful for having broken his trust, after the family had been so kind to him, that he forced himself to atone for it by humbling himself to the family level, instead of requiring the woman and her children to stand and wait upon him while he occupied their table in the solitary state due his birth and dignity. It does us all good to unbend sometimes.

Related Characters: Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI, John Canty / John Hobbs
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 144-145
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

“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!”

Related Characters: The Hermit (speaker), Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI, John Canty / John Hobbs, King Henry VIII, Hugo
Page Number: 153
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

Sir Miles! Bless me, I had totally forgot I was a knight! Lord how marvelous a thing it is, the grip his memory doth take upon his quaint and crazy fancies!...An empty and foolish title is mine, and yet it is something to have deserved it, for I think it is more honor to be held worthy to be a spectre-knight in his Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows, than to be held base enough to be an earl in some of the real kingdoms of this world.”

Related Characters: Miles Hendon (speaker), Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis:

“Reflect, sire—your laws are the wholesome breath of your own royalty; shall their source resist them, yet require the branches to respect them? Apparently one of these laws has been broken; when the king is on his throne again, can it ever grieve him to remember that when he was seemingly a private person he loyally sunk the king in the citizen and submitted to its authority?”

Related Characters: Miles Hendon (speaker), Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI, King Henry VIII, Hugo
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 169
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

“My husband is master in this region; his power hath hardly any limit; the people prosper or starve, as he wills. If you resembled not the man whom you profess to be, my husband might bid you pleasure yourself with your dream in peace; but trust me, I know him well, I know what he will do; he will say to all, that you are but a mad impostor, and straightway all will echo him.” She bent upon Miles that same steady look once more[.]

Related Characters: Lady Edith (speaker), Miles Hendon, Hugh Hendon, Arthur Hendon, Sir Richard Hendon
Page Number: 187
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

That same day several prisoners were brought in to remain over night, who were being conveyed, under guard, to various places in the kingdom, to undergo punishment for crimes committed. The king conversed with these,—he had made it a point, from the beginning, to instruct himself for the kingly office by questioning prisoners whenever the opportunity offered—and the tale of their woes wrung his heart. One of them was a poor half-witted woman who had stolen a yard or two of cloth from a weaver—she was to be hanged for it. Another was a man who had been accused of stealing a horse; he said the proof had failed, and he had imagined that he was safe from the halter; but no—he was hardly free before he was arraigned for killing a deer in the king’s park; this was proved against him, and now he was on his way to the gallows. There was a tradesman’s apprentice whose case particularly distressed the king; this youth said he found a hawk, one evening, that had escaped from its owner, and he took it home with him, imagining himself entitled to it; but the court convicted him of stealing it, and sentenced him to death.

Related Characters: Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI
Related Symbols: Clothes
Page Number: 198-199
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI, Tom Canty
Related Symbols: Clothes
Page Number: 209
Explanation and Analysis:

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.

Related Characters: Tom Canty, John Canty / John Hobbs, Tom’s Mother, Bet Canty, Nan Canty
Related Symbols: Clothes
Page Number: 210
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 31 Quotes

At this point, just as he was raising his hand to fling another rich largess, he caught sight of a pale, astounded face which was strained forward out of the second rank of the crowd, its intense eyes riveted upon him. A sickening consternation struck through him; he recognized his mother! […] In an instant more she had torn her way out of the press, and past the guards, and was at his side. She embraced his leg, she covered it with kisses, she cried, “O my child, my darling!” lifting toward him a face that was transfigured with joy and love. The same instant and officer of the King’s Guard snatched her away with a curse, and sent her reeling back whence she came with a vigorous impulse from his strong arm. The words “I do not know you, woman!” were falling from Tom Canty’s lips when this piteous thing occurred; but it smote him to the heart to see her treated so; and as she turned for a last glimpse of him, whilst the crowd was swallowing her from his sight, she seemed so wounded, so broken-hearted, that a shame fell upon him which consumed his pride to ashes, and withered his stolen royalty. His grandeurs were stricken valueless: they seemed to fall away from him like rotten rags.

Related Characters: Tom’s Mother (speaker), Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI, Tom Canty, John Canty / John Hobbs, Father Andrew
Related Symbols: Clothes
Page Number: 216
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 33 Quotes

“Know, all ye that hear my voice, that from this day, they that abide in the shelter of Christ’s Hospital and share the king’s bounty, shall have their minds and hearts fed, as well as their baser parts; and this boy shall dwell there, and hold the chief place in its honorable body of governors, during life. And for that he hath been a king, it is meet that other than common observance shall be his due; wherefore, note this his dress of state, for by it he shall be known, and none shall copy it; and wheresoever he shall come, it shall remind the people that he hath been royal, in his time, and none shall deny him his due of reverence or fail to give him proper salutation. He hath the throne’s protection, he hath the crown’s support, he shall be known and called by the honorable title of the King’s Ward.”

Related Characters: Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI (speaker), Tom Canty, Father Andrew
Related Symbols: Clothes
Page Number: 240-241
Explanation and Analysis:
Conclusion Quotes

Yes, King Edward VI lived only a few years, poor boy, but he lived them worthily. More than once, when some great dignitary, some gilded vassal of the crown, made some argument against his leniency, and urged that some law which he was bent upon amending was gentle enough for its purpose, and wrought no suffering or oppression which any one need mightily mind, the young king turned the mournful eloquence of his great compassionate eyes upon him and answered—

“What dost thou know of suffering and oppression? I and my people know, but not thou.”

The reign of Edward VI was a singularly merciful one for those harsh times.

Related Characters: Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales / King Edward VI (speaker), King Henry VIII
Page Number: 245-246
Explanation and Analysis: