Pudd'nhead

I found the one blood drop theme in this book to be very interesting. This is a constant theme through the book. The "Fake" Tom has many stereotypes that happen to him and that are said about him even before he finds out that he 1/32 black. From the start the show the "original" tom to be strong, courageous, and of good health. Then they show the fake tom as weak, sickly, and not able to get along with people. It is later shown in the book that fake tom falls into a few different stereotypes. He likes to gamble. Not only does he like to gamble but he does not know when to stop. As he is constantly getting farther into debt. He then resorts to stealing to try to pay back his debt. Only to incur these debts again. Roxy later says, after she has told him that he is part black, that his black blood is leading him to be a coward. This is the only reason his is a coward because he has such a noble family in her point of view. Later fake tom also commits a murder. All of the stereotypes that are shown in this book due to being black still tend to show up in certain part of the US and in pop culture. Blacks are still stereotyped as people that gamble, steal, and murder. When all people do these things. I just found it interesting how the theme of one drop seemed to have so much sway over the actions that fake tom does throughout the book.